Ink Blotting - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Posted on Tuesday, June 03, 2008 at 12:00 AM

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

The reviews I've read about the latest and likely last, Indiana Jones movie are definitely across the board.  There are those that went wearing rose-colored glasses expecting a return to delight and adventure who've become disillusioned.  They leave the theatre and hastily scrawl their dissatisfaction with the monkeys and Cate Blanchett's Russian accent.  There are others who were never a fan of Indiana Jones who bemoan the needless exposition and lack of character motivation.  I don't really know why those particular individuals saw the movie at all; if they weren't a fan of the franchise they should have known what to expect when purchasing a ticket that started with Indiana Jones and the…

The last group, the larger group, the satisfied group, had many complimentary things to say about the movie.  Indiana Jones punches people, swings from his whip and shoots people much as you remembered and expected him to.  He gets caught by the bad guys a couple of times, and we come to understand that yes, they really are bad guys.  He, and those that choose to tag along with Indy, get caught up in all kinds of hairy situations.  But moreover the time period that this last Indiana Jones adventure is set in is the most remarkable change to the franchise and for the most part is enjoyed by the movie going audience.  It's very much as though Lucas, Spielberg and Ford said Indiana has gotten older and the world has changed a great deal.  Gone are the days when the Nazi's hungrily looked for the artifacts of Judeo-Christian importance.  Now we have Russians seeking alien artifacts.  No longer does the Second World War loom on the horizon.  Now the Cold War oppressively creates an atmosphere of mistrust and doubt.  And yet mysteries thousands of years old are still there for Henry Jones, Junior to explore and reveal.

Reviewers across the board have been unanimous in only three regards when writing about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.  The first is that Shia Labeouf should not have swung with the monkeys (and I'll say no more on that regard to give you your moment of incredulous disappointment), Harrison Ford looks almost no different now than he did in The Last Crusade and that the way in which Indiana Jones avoids a nuclear explosion is the most memorable part of the movie.  Everything else about the movie is controversially enjoyed or despised.

My principle complaint is that they don't call him Indiana enough.  It's like our adventuresome and querulous hero has mellowed in the years since the Last Crusade and decided that he would grow up and stop calling himself by the dog's name.  He's called Henry Jones more often in the movie than he is referred to by Indiana.  Gone now are the days when someone in dire straits would cry out “Indy” as a plea for saving while the camera pans to Indiana Jones, equally in dire straits with no one to cry out for help to.

But suffice to say this.  It's an Indiana Jones movie where Harrison Ford is 20 years older than he was in the last Indiana Jones movie.  George Lucas has created 3 prequel Star Wars movies and Stephen Spielberg is… well, he's still Steven Spielberg.  Please give some thought to those precursors before watching the movie, especially if you're another reviewer.  It's a good, fun, movie that is worth the price of admission.  It's not the best Indiana Jones movie, but then again as Roger Ebert says – it wasn't the first Indiana Jones movie I'd seen, and the first one you see is most likely you're favorite, the rest of them are just variations on a theme.

I hope this movie goes on to intrigue enough young people that they go out and see the first three. I hope this movie gives all those who've seen the first three a contemplative smile on their face as they remember the feelings they had seeing them for the first time.  I know it did for me.

3.5 stars out of 4

Kyle Gould is a University of Calgary Graduate in English devoutly trying to make the 25,000 dollar piece of parchment not just a glorified ink blot. Currently it would serve better as a Rorschach test. Feel free to throw some ink his way at wkkgould@hotmail.com.