WARNING - CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR
"INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL"
AND ALSO, GRATUITOUS USE OF THE PHRASE
"THE EIGHTIES WERE THE GREATEST ERA OF FILM EVER"
"INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL"
AND ALSO, GRATUITOUS USE OF THE PHRASE
"THE EIGHTIES WERE THE GREATEST ERA OF FILM EVER"
Indiana Jones - or, as the adult, grown up version has him, Henry Jones, Jnr - is back. It's been nineteen years since we last saw him, at least properly. In the long hiatus, we've had the TV series but it was like a Stepford version of Indy, bereft of the thrills and matinee joys that made the original trilogy so damn entertaining.
Nineteen years. It's a long time, especially considering that Harrison Ford was not a young man even when they did Raiders Of The Lost Ark. It's also strange when you consider that Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade is very much a final act. It even has them riding off into the sunset at the end, father and son reconciled, evil defeated. So, while it's always nice to catch up with an old friend, sometimes it's better to leave the memories where they belong. Some fires should not be rekindled.
In the nineteen years since Henry Jones and Henry Jones, Jnr rode off into the sunset movies have changed immeasurably. CGI has risen swiftly, gone from its brash youth like a bull in a china shop to being a valuable tool in skilled hands. Superstars have burned brightly and then faded just as fast (and speaking of which, isn't it sad that all three of Indy's girls - Karen Allen, Kate Capshaw and the divine Alison Doody - seem to have faded into obscurity following their adventure). The global political scene has changed; the Cold War has finished, new enemies have emerged...
So Indiana Jones is a relic of a bygone age. And cleverly, they play with that notion in the film itself. It's nineteen years after the events of The Last Crusade. Indy is still teaching, but Marcus Brody has passed away, as has Henry Jones, Snr. There is a lot made of Indy's war record - apparently he worked for the Secret Service during the war - but at heart he's the same man, although older and crankier and he has the same zeal for archeology. And bringing Indy's dislocation into sharp focus, we have that young rising star, Shia LeBeouf, as a young greaser, looking exactly like Marlon Brando in The Wild One when we first see him.
The plot plays almost like a replay of The Temple Of Doom, but with better villains (the gorgeous and talented Cate Blanchett) but with the Roswell aliens/Erich von Daniken progenitors/The Mysterious Cities of Gold as the plot McGuffin instead of some borderline offensive Hindu mythology. It's a glorious hodge-podge of a dozen or so ideas that almost - but not quite - fits together perfectly.
It's probably no secret now that Mutt is Indy's son. Hell, it was no secret before the film came out. The rumour mill had been going full tilt and it would have been a surprise if Mutt hadn't been Indy's son. It's one element of the script that seems a little shoe-horned in. Sean Connery's role in The Last Crusade was thematically relevent and expertly woven into the plot. Mutt just seems to be there to fill in the youth demographic. One surprise is Ray Winstone's character. We all knew he would betray Indy (this is one area where the film differs from Temple - that film is the only one where he is not betrayed by a friend) but then he comes out as a double agent. It's a brilliant move and is only trumped later on when he reveals he was lying and actually has betrayed him after all.
Despite all of this, Indy IV is very much a film out of time. It tries to recapture the glories of the 80's action movie, because as we all know, the eighties were the greatest era of film ever, especially for fantasy films. And running along the spine of the 80's were the Indiana Jones films. Raiders was there in 1981 at the start and The Last Crusade made its bow in 1989, sandwiched in between them are some of the greatest fantasy films ever - Labyrinth, Star Trek 2, American Werewolf, Supergirl, Gremlins, The Fly, Terminator, Aliens, Blade Runner - it's the birth of modern fantasy movies.
Simce then we've had the rapid maturation of the science fiction movie followed by a rediscovery of its innocence with the rise of the superhero movie. Film has become aware of itself. In a very real sense, film has eaten itself. So much of film these days is post-modern, not in the breaking of the fourth wall sense, but in the sense that most movies are aware of their place, chock full of references to past efforts. It's a movement that gave Quentin Tarantino his entire career (even Jackie Brown is built on seventies blaxploitation). Indy IV doesn't do this.
And maybe that's a good thing.
It's kind of like a throwback. It wouldn't work for every film. Hell, it wouldn't work for many films. Indy gets away with it because of its heritage and the fact that despite his occasional misfires - naming no names but Hook, The Lost World, Amistad - Steven Speilberg is perhaps the greatest director of all time (and coming from a hardcore Scorsese fan, that's a funny thing to say) and if anyone can pull it off, it's the 'Berg.
So, four out of five for Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, losing points for a slightly pointless McGuffin (the previous three films were all about saving the world, Indy IV doesn't have anything like that focus) and for Cate Blanchett's slightly wandering Russian accent and the fact that she wears overalls throughout the entire film and doesn't get into anything more... alluring, like Alison Doody in Last Crusade.
Advide to George Lucas though: Let the franchise lie. It's a happy exercise in nostalgia, but like Star Wars and James Bond, it's time to let it rest or to reinvent it into something new and exciting. But with Indy, I'm not sure that would work, and if it did, it probably wouldn't be the Indiana Jones we know and love. In a way, Indy IV is like a love letter to the 80's (and it's ironic that a fil which is so rooted in thirties chapter serials and fifties B movies - no doubt an Indy film set during the forties would draw upon war movies and film noir - is so adoring towards the eighties). And that is a thing of beauty.
Peace out.
