Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
As a huge, self-proclaimed fan of the Indiana Jones films, May 25, 2008, was a bittersweet day in my life. After all, when Indiana Jones literally rode off into the sunset 19 years ago to the day, it was the perfect ending to a nearly perfect trilogy of films. From the greatest adventure film of all time (Raiders of the Lost Ark) to a figurative and literal Last Crusade, this swashbuckling, headfirst anti-hero had repaired the most important relationship of his life by having a little faith and letting go.
Now he's back. Like an old friend you haven't seen in a dog's age, this now grizzled archaeologist picks himself up off the ground, tugs his dusty fedora onto his head and instantly materializes before your eyes, just like you remembered him, only with a few more wrinkles and more than a few grey hairs.
But it's undeniably Indy, because the man who channels him for us, Harrison Ford, effortlessly slips back into character as though he never really abandoned the man all those years ago.
It's Nevada, 1957—Area 51 to be exact. Indy and his World War II buddy, Mac, have been shanghaied by Soviet agents led by Natasha from the Rocky & Bullwinkle Show to help them find something in a familiar looking warehouse. It doesn't take long before Indy does what we all came to see him do—fight his way out of another tough scrape in the first of the film's fantastic action set pieces.
Whatever the Russkies were after, Indy's forced involvement in their crime turns his life upside when some paranoid government agencies during the Red Scare pressure the university to fire him. Unjustly dismissed, Dr. Jones' life is unknowingly changed again when a kid named Mutt Williams, who fancies himself the next Brando in
The Wild One, shows up with a fantastical tale about his kidnapped mother, Indy's old college chum Jonathan Oxley, and a crystal Skull, a legendary artifact of pre-Colombian South America which supposedly contains mystical powers.
Now Indy knows what the Russians were after in the Nevada desert, and they're still after it in Connecticut. Indy and Mutt escape from more Russian agents in a spectacular chase through the campus of Marshall College and head off to Peru to find Oxley, Mutt's mom, and the crystal Skull.
That's the good news. The bad news is that the rest of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull never really amounts to anything.
In the best Indiana Jones films—Raiders and the Last Crusade—the artifact being pursued actually drives the real story about Indy and his relationships with Marion, his father, and even God—if you choose to read that much into it. In Temple of Doom and now Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, there is no connection between the artifact and the characters, just some ridiculously extravagant action set pieces and a tongue-in-cheek sense of humor. Entertaining? Yes. Lasting impact? No.
Unlike with Temple of Doom, however, you can sense that Spielberg desperately wants Kingdom of the Crystal Skull to make the same connection as the two great films of the series; but as the true identity of Mutt's mom comes to light, too much attention is paid to revealing the end game about the titular artifact and not enough paid to the collision of these new and old relationships. Spielberg and screenwriter David Koepp both refuse to slow the story down for anything, even to pause and catch up with an old character we haven't seen in almost 30 years. An extra five minutes of one-on-one character interaction in the right places could have done this film a world of good—five minutes easily found by doing away with Indy's duplicitous friend Mac, a complete waste of screen time and space.
Like I said, it was a bittersweet day. It was good to see my old movie friend again, and there are parts of this film I'll likely watch over and over again with a big smile on my face. On the other hand, I doubt I'll ever watch it from start to finish, something I do with Raiders and Last Crusade quite often.
Indiana Jones. Always knew someday you'd come walking back through my door. Perhaps we'll meet again someday under better circumstances.