The return of Indiana Jones makes for a rollicking time
Like one of the most iconic film scenes of all time audiences are waiting crouched in front of a grinning golden idol wondering whether the latest Indiana Jones gambit will turn out to be a measured fit or a miscalculated sack of dirt. It’s a tense moment especially given Lucasfilm’s last attempt at reviving a franchise but in the end the film delivers not as expected but as hoped. With the trap sprung and the boulder rolling once again Indiana Jones proves he’s still got the endurance to outrun it.
Yes Harrison Ford is older and Steven Spielberg and George Lucas are now firmly committed to the theory that families can’t get enough of cuddly CGI animals. Beyond a few creaking joints though Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is giddy as a schoolboy given complete access to fight choreographers and pyrotechnics which is exactly what has always made the series such fun.
Swapping Soviets for Nazis and science fiction for mysticism Crystal Skull proves that enemies and artifacts are essentially interchangeable provided Indiana Jones is still jumping into vehicles and punching out their drivers. With the rapier-wielding Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett) scouring the world for artifacts to empower the Soviet Union Jones finds himself confronted with a magnetized corpse and a South American legend about a crystal skull. (Hint: Mayans. Aliens. David Koepp’s script doesn’t believe you can piece it together without help but I’m certain you can.)
Teaming with a greaser named Mutt Williams (Shia LeBeouf) whose father figure Professor Oxly (John Hurt) has been captured while searching for the skull Jones flees the encroaching spectre of McCarthyist paranoia for more familiar territory: tombs and fistfights in military jeeps.
Computer graphics make their first appearance in the franchise and by and large they show that Spielberg and Lucas can still create some truly blockbuster action set pieces. From an early warehouse battle to Jones devising a way to survive a nuclear blast these sequences are all absolutely absurd but giddily so. The action falters only when this giddiness devolves into hysterics like some particularly silly crotch shots and a Tarzan-styled rescue with Spielberg-Lucas cuddly CGI creatures.
Like its titular hero Crystal Skull gets up adjusts its fedora and punches a few foreign soldiers in the face. After almost 20 years it’s nice to see that some formulas don’t need any adjustment.
