I saw the new Indiana Jones movie, “Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull” last weekend. It was a great movie but as an Indy movie it didn’t quite do so well.
It was almost 20 years ago since the last Indy movie, “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” hit the theaters, and obviously the actor who plays the titular adventurer, Harrison Ford has aged a bit. So for the fourth movie, they’ve set it years after the last one, with a wiser, older Indy. For one I’m glad they showed that time passed for Indy, though somehow it seems like he’s still as strong as ever. For this movie, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas decided to play with themes from the 1950s, like the Cold War, the testing of nuclear weapons, the “red scare” and probably the most controversial aspect of the movie, the origin of the crystal skull. I’ll keep the review as spoiler free as possible, so I’ll be omitting a lot of story details.
In the opening sequence, the Soviets have captured Indiana Jones and asked for his assistance in searching for a missing artifact in a hidden storage facility somewhere in Arizona. We were also introduced to Cate Blanchett’s character, Irina Spalko, a Soviet scientist specializing in psychic warfare, and George “Mac” McHale played by Ray Winstone. It was a great action packed sequence, and we’ll soon find out that this was the same facility where the Ark of the Covenant was stored during the first movie, “Raiders of the lost Ark”.
After his escape and an awesome sequence I won’t be spoiling, we’re introduced to the motorcycle-riding greaser Mutt Williams, played by rising star Shia LaBeouf. I didn’t quite expect his character to be so likeable from the getgo, but from his memorable entrance to the end of the movie he really grew on me. Mutt approached Indy when his mentor and Indy’s former colleague, Harold “Ox” Oxley went missing and left behind clues that only he could understand. Because of this, Mutt’s mother, Marion Williams was also kidnapped, and told him that only Jones could help him. Ox was apparently studying about the mysterious Crystal Skull, and because of this he was being chased by the Soviets. The rest of the film deals with Jones and Mutt’s search for the clues that Ox left behind, with the Soviets hot on their tail.
It’s a really enjoyable movie, but somehow there are a lot of flaws that keeps it from being a great Indy movie. The most noticeable was the heavy use of CGI, particularly in the jungle chase sequence. It felt too much like a theme park ride. Another qualm of mine was with the story, which lacked tension and somehow seemed to be too shallow. What made it fun though was the nudges to the old films, like Indy’s fear of snakes and tributes to Marcus Brody and Indy’s father, and the excellent stunts.
All in all, it’s one of the most exciting films this summer. Indiana Jones is probably one of the biggest icons of our generation, and this movie was one of the most eagerly anticipated movies of the year. I’m not quite sure if it lives up to the previous movies, but I sure enjoyed watching it.
I give it 3 and 1/2 stars out of 5.
