“The Old Ford Still Drives, But the Shine is Off the Crystal”

It’s the end of the game. Three seconds remain on the clock and your team has just spent its final timeout. The kicker trots onto the field and gets into position. The ball is snapped…the kicker puts his leg into it and sends the pigskin sailing through the air. Sitting on the edge of your sofa, you wince, bite your lower lip and lean to the left to help out the ball, which continues drifting right as if being pulled off course by a giant magnet. At the last second the ball hooks, just barely clearing the right goalpost. You loudly exhale and sink back into your couch. It wasn’t pretty, but a win’s a win.

As I sat in a surprisingly half full theater on the opening night of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I found myself leaning to the left on several occasions, trying to assist the long-anticipated sequel to a series I have enormous respect and reverence for and an iconic hero I’ve idolized for most of my life. But as much as I willed it to be the filmic comeback of the decade, Indy IV, though replete with engaging drama and nail-biting cliffhangers, ekes out a victory much like our cardiac kicker. There’s no doubt that Indy IV will be a hit, but what’s profoundly disappointing is how close it is to being a miss.

Indy IV comes nineteen years after the previous film, The Last Crusade, and appropriately jumps forward roughly the same span of time in fictional years. The Spielberg/Lucas/Ford vehicle takes place in 1957 during the Cold War and replaces Nazis with Russians in the antagonist department. In are two new sidekicks, Mac (Ray Winstone) and Mutt (Shia LaBeouf), but out, unfortunately, is Henry Jones, Sr. (Sean Connery, who couldn’t be lured out of retirement for one last romp as Indy’s dad). Cate Blanchett is Russian baddie Irina Spalko, a hard-nosed agent bent on discovering the mythical and metaphysical crystal skull. John Hurt plays the formerly brilliant, presently insane Professor Oxley (something about gazing into the eponymous artifact too long). Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), Indy’s love/hate companion in the first movie, makes a delightful return to the series—Marion shows up halfway through the film and adds relational grounding to the highflying, meandering storyline.

It gives me no pleasure to criticize an Indy movie, but I just can’t turn a blind eye toward this film’s glaring deficiencies and inconsistencies. First and foremost, the plot is an incoherently obtuse tangle of yarn laden with improbable events…like when Indy survives a nuclear detonation by hiding out inside a freezer. Another drawback is that half the movie seems to take place in one subterranean cavern or another (a la The Temple of Doom) which makes for a pretty drab viewing experience. The special effects are first-rate, but the paint-by-numbers action scenes borrow heavily from the storyboards of the earlier trilogy (it’s a bitter irony that the oft-emulated movie series now finds itself so out of gas it has to steal from itself). Also, there’s a captured/escaped/captured again plot contrivance that gets exhausting after the second or third repetition.

I could have easily overlooked these story snafus or the occasional plot hole were it not for the movie’s sci-fi subplot, which challenges the limits of believability while irreverently disregarding the established format of the other films. When the otherworldly presence is finally revealed, I had to keep from yelling, “This is Indiana Jones, not the X-Files.” The movie’s conclusion is so far-fetched and incongruous; it will leave many viewers in utter bewilderment (judging from the stunned silence during the “who-changed-the-channel?” finale and the mediocre applause at the end of the film).

Still, there are many story elements that capture the old Indy magic: The incisive interplay between Indy, Mutt and Marion is highly amusing as are the inside gags, like when we catch a glimpse of the Ark of the Covenant in a warehouse. Spielberg’s direction, barring the reheated action sequences, is patently and predictably superb. However, if the movie has a weak link, it’s Lucas and co.’s kitchen sink screenplay, which bogs down the story with too many details. Sometimes simpler is better.

As with the recent updates to the Rocky, Die Hard and Rambo series’, Indiana Jones has expanded its universe and captured the imaginations of a whole new generation. But with time working against the aging star and a less than stellar outcome here, one wonders if the series should just hang up the fedora and bullwhip. After all, the next attempt might hook too far to the left.

Rating: 3

Tags: Action, Adventure