I’m going to leave spoilers for another review, though I would think that anything that indicates tone is spoiler enough for those who want to go into the film pure, as I chose to… as best I could, thanks to the NY Times.
And so…
The most striking thing to me about Indiana Jones & The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is that it is, in spite of claims otherwise made, a CG version of an Indiana Jones movie. And this changes a great deal about what was so very pleasurable about the first three films. Even then, post-Star Wars, they were throwbacks. Star Wars had many layered effects, but they had the limitations – beautiful limitations – of the pre-computer-driven effects universe. The Raiders franchise was about big sets and dramatic landscapes and stunts that were breathtaking, even if we knew that it wasn’t always Harrison Ford sliding underneath the truck.
We are still in the infancy of CG use at the movies, advanced as it feels. One of the recurring problems with all that visual power is that it gives filmmakers too many options. What does a director do? Well, they have a vision, they lead and army, but mostly, they fix problems. A movie like Speed Racer is really all about vision. There are problems solved, but all in the service of very clear, very detailed ideas. But on a movie like Iron Man, you really see the director as fixer… a big part of that fix being the freeing of Downey, Jr to riff and riff and riff and riff.
Steven Spielberg has been The Master Fixer. Jaws made him an instant legend with the shark that didn’t work. Close Encounters of the Third Kind is still beautiful, though quite simple by current visual effects standards, one of the biggest effects being a mountain of mashed potatoes. And even in Jurassic Park, which really ushered in the CG era, there was a limited number of big dino effects, which Spielberg used to ultimate effect, along with a parade of puppets and animatronics. Does anyone want to see Jaws with a CG shark? Does anyone need more than the light flooding the truck on the train tracks to get excited? Have the Jurassic sequels captured more heart by having more digital dinos?
On the other hand, I got into a similar whiplash situation with the most recent film in the Die Hard series. To me, a Die Hard movie, not unlike an Indiana Jones or Bond movie, is a regular guy in and extreme situation doing heroic and remarkable things, but never past the point of feet-on-the-ground, crazy-but-remotely-possible credibility. For me, Live Free Or Die Hard crossed that line with too much firepower, too much CG, too much of the incredible… just too much.
The magic of Indiana Jones isn’t dead… not with a senior citizen Harrison Ford (7 years older than when Sean Connery played his dad with a white beard)… not with the Nazis in the rear view… not with Spielberg also passing his 60th birthday. You can feel the Indy magic at various moments through this film.
However…
This simply is not the Indiana Jones film of our youths. It is not scrupulously light on CG effects and it often loses track of the storytelling while using the new medium to heighten instead of giving audiences the thrill of it feeling real. It gets distracted, sometimes in some very entertaining ways, from the formula that makes the series work. It adds characters that don’t reach past were the old movies went, but which demand excuses for their existence throughout.
One action sequence without much CG still offers a problem that feels as though it was created because the filmmakers were in the “anything goes” CG mindset. Thing is, if you do a major DG scene once amongst the naturalistic scenes, cool. But that’s just not the case.
The problem, aside from the CG, feels like it was lost in the story meetings. Someone needed to (or needed to better) sit down and work through the central storyline. What drives Indy through the story? What motivates the female villain of the piece? What can we do to make the motives of Indy’s sidekick more clear and natural? And do we get, in the Mutt character, a character who can really keep up physically with Indiana Jones… and if not, how can we make that failure fun… and any possible moments of overcoming it thrilling.
However…
There is plenty of entertainment in this movie. The skill with which Spielberg does many of the things he does is so far past some of the filmmakers who have made incredibly successful pictures, it’s remarkable. Not unlike Sex & The City (which runs 25 minutes longer), there are a lot of strings ties together in ways that are, generally satisfying.
I expect most audiences to be pretty happy with their Indiana Jones experience… especially the kids who haven’t ridden with the fedora and whip on a big screen before. (It kind of tells you how unbalanced things are at Paramount that the first three films were not re-released theatrically this winter and spring, like Star Wars was. Even if the run was half as successful as the Star Wars events, there was plenty of room in the last few months and it would have been a true pleasure to see them on screen again.)
It’s not a terribly movie by any standard… though there are some terrible moments. The issue of the Crystal Skull storyline that irked many pre-release critics is, to my eye, not a problem. I do have some problems with it not being quite as fun as I would have liked…. but more on that in the spoiler column. Shia LeBeouf survives this movie, though the idea of him “taking over” the bullwhip makes me indecisive about laughing or crying. LeBeouf is charming, but he is still a child actor and that hasn’t changed. If it changes in the years to come, who knows? But right now, he is blown off of the screen by Ford… as is appropriate in this film. (He does not come close to the level of energy that River Phoenix’s cameo at the top of the last film did.)
One of the funniest thoughts for the industry interested is that Spielberg suggests that the Paramount mountain is filled with furry little rodents.
The biggest problem, besides the CG, that really struck me watching the film a second time, was that they never quite figured out what being in his 50s (or his 60s, in reality) meant to Dr. Jones. The first film had the underscore of the romance with Marion. The second had the underscore of the still single professor investing both in his carnal side with the blonde and his parental heart, saving kids. The third film was the grown Dr. Jones as hampered and tehn empowered by being his father’s son.
There are some big story points in this one, but how Indy is different is not one of them. Yeah, he’s older. They keep telling us and him. But what motivates a guy of his age to keep going out there? You don’t have to linger on it for page after page of dialogue. But the girls aren’t painting “I heart You” on their eyelids anymore, some of those he has traveled with are dead of old age and other things, and if he is willing to, say, do this for an old friend, wouldn’t it be more interesting if it was more difficult to drag him in and ore exciting if finding his groove got him really excited again? Alternately, wouldn’t his desire for things men imagine having when they are nearing 60 be interesting?
This is mostly subtext, but it matters. It all becomes one with the whole. And watching the film, there is that feeling of “but what if?”. To argue the film isn’t good is kinda silly. But it is definitely a few disciples short of a last supper.

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