Vintage

Finally, finally I got to go see this film and you know what- Indiana is still one of the all time legend action heroes and cool as a, eh, cool as a crystal skull that can channel alien knowledge. 

Even age seems to have treated Indy well.  He finally has caught up with the worn look of his hat, whip and bomber jacket but he looks fantastic in his 60s, gray flecks and all. But come to think of it he wore the same look equally as well in the first of the four films. 

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a 2008 adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg, from a story co-written by executive producer George Lucas. Set in 1957, the fourth film in the Indiana Jones film series pits an older Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) against agents of the Soviet Union, led by Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett), in the search for the crystal skull, which ostensibly belonged to an alien guy.

Indy is aided by his former flame Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), who we can only assume had to close her thriving bar business in the mountains of Nepal.  We also get the greaser "Mutt" Williams (Shia LaBeouf), and fellow adventurer Mac (Ray Winstone). John Hurt and Jim Broadbent get some screen as fellow academics.

It is perhaps worth noting I was able to earmark the time for this film from some grunt work on my part.  You see, weeks before hand, I had to indoctrinate my daughter to the adventuresome thrills of Indiana Jones.  So, it was two weeks beforehand when we found ourselves at a Borders Book store and there in the center aisle they erected a table of Indiana Jones comic books, movie guides, toys, posters, games and other minutiae.  Like Marcus Brody figuring out the next clue, it dawned on me with befuddled clarity. 

I turned to my daughter and asked her if she knew who Indian Jones was?  “No, who is that…,” she said.

“He is a Super Hero – of sorts”

Her eyes lit!

So, it was on that note I was able to flip through the pages of the book and draw her into the magical world of Indiana and his adventures.    If you should chance to read my review of the original film or have done so already you will know that on the first go around my daughter didn’t find the Indy movies all that much interesting.  However, since then she watched the original at least four times in the few weeks that have elapsed since now and then.   When it was time to see Crystal Skull, she was more eager than a Nazi art collector staring into the Ark of the Covenant. 

It must also be noted that I reserve a trip to the big screen, movieplex only for the most interesting of films.  The last time I went to the actual movies before Crystal Skull was to witness an equally important cinematic milestone, The Simpson's Movie (my daughter loved that as well).

So as we began our Crystal Skull adventure, my own better-half, Marion Ravenwood if you will, was next door; part of a Sex and the City entourage which included a fancy lunch beforehand and a Cosmo or two.  Daughter and I had Burger King where I got her an Indiana Jones little plastic boulder toy you could roll at Indy and no it was not the burger patty on my Whopper.  Nonetheless, I think the toy, not the burger, is somewhere on the floor of our Jeep Liberty. So under such pretexts we took in the fourth installment of the series. 

It opens in Nevada, where Indy is pulled from the trunk of a car and asked (lazy word choice) by a group of gun-wielding Soviets to find a special crate Indy had helped exhume in Roswell, Texas (yes, that one) way back in 1947.  It is ten years later and Indy seems rather annoyed that he was kidnapped for such a task.  Luckily, he remembers the artifact was highly magnetic.  By using gunpowder Indy throws a handful into the air and it magically whisks away through the storage facility to the crate needed. 

Spalko (Blanchet) is a great villain, with her stern appearance and captivating stare, rooted in psychic ability no less.  She seems to get, as she says, exactly what she wants, and follows Indy with steely eyes and determination to find what it is that was pulled out of Roswell in 1947. 

This opening scene reminded me a bit of the one in the original Raiders in it that he was forced to retrieve an artifact by his enemies and hand it over to another, eh, art robber?  Luckily, Indy does escape as we knew he would and the next action sequences that enable him to do so are creative and fantastic, up there with some of the best stunt feats of entire series. 

Case in point: Indy finds him oddly in the middle of a fake town of smiling happy suburbanites, a sea of mannequins watering their lawns and cooking dinner.  Then you hear the countdown and we know what is to follow is a nuclear test explosion.  We especially know that when we see a big freaking bomb hoisted into the air. How will Indy ever get out of that one? 

I will say this, if you wait to watch this when it comes out on DVD next year, don’t get up and go to the refrigerator and miss this part; you might be inclined to get inside it.

After the escape, Indy finds himself back to familiar grounds as a tweed jacket-donning professor, who is fired in the highly charged atmosphere of Communism because he was job mates with a double-crossing agent. 

Here Indy meets Mutt (LaBeouf) who has a map. It is from Professor Oxley, a colleague of Indy’s, who disappeared looking for "Akator" or El Dorado as it was called by some.

LaBeouf as Williams is on the mark as a greaser young dude with an attitude to boot.  He was fond of switchblade knives and I loved how Indy was patient with him, even though we all know that it is Indy who is the unstoppable happy action hero now a bit long in the tooth. 

Alas, though, Indy now compensates with wisdom an interest in his legacy lacking in the earlier flicks.

“So how do you plan to make money,” Indy asks Mutt, upon learning how the kid dropped out of school.

“Fix motorcycles,” he answers.

“Is that what you want to do the rest of your life,” Indy asks, neutrally.

“Yeah.  You got a problem with that,” Mutt huffs.

“No. If that is what you love to do don’t let anyone tell you different,” Indy says. 

What I love about that small exchange is that it makes you think of Indy now in his 60s and all the adventures of his fictional life.  Yes, indeed, we should all do what we love and what great lesson to past down to the next generation than to have it said by no greater an authority on doing what one loves to do than Indiana Jones.  Of course, Indy changes his tone when he finds out Williams is actually his child. Then, like in all paternal relationships, all bets are off.

“How come you never finished school,” he yells.

“That didn’t matter before to you,” Williams says.

“That’s before you were my son,” Indy says.

See it for yourself. I loved the new Indy. But, back to things more bull-whipy.

A familiar red line on the map with the airplane traveling over it and we are seeing the Naszca Lines and cool, spooky graves in Peru.  We are reminded that they are lucky not be grave robbers because they shoot grave robbers in Peru, something that seems of little solace to Mutt.   

What follows is a sojourn into the Amazon to find the lost city of El Dorado, where Indy in short order catches up with his old flame Marion Ravenwood (Allen).  She too is of the original film vintage and it is her presence which seems to tie the whole series together, like bookends on a shelf full of dog-eared adventure novels. 

The sack of money in this movie is the Crystal Skull, which is the head of a dead alien as you may have guessed by now (or read earlier and remembered).  Supposedly if the skull is returned to the tomb from whence it came, a powerful weapon will be bestowed upon the returner, which might lead one to wonder if George Bush has taken some interest in this film.  Anyway, Ravenwood was mixed up with Oxley, which is how she pops out of tent in the Amazon.

But, back to that Crystal Skull.  Where can you get one?

Not at Target that is for sure, but I would pay top dollar for one.

Apparently, an alien crystal skull can lend to its wielder the ability to see through the eyes of your enemy and make them do stuff they don’t want to.   In some ways, this mirrors the plot of the Ark.  He who wields it becomes all powerful.   Same thing with the Grail I guess too except that had the added benefit of holding a 22 oz. beverage along with the wrath of God.

What was really neat about this version of Indy was its crossover into the realm of extraterrestrial life, yet packaged in the context of the Lost City of El Dorado and Conquistadors.  We got a whiff of everything that seems to interest Spielberg and Lucas – UFOs, aliens, fights, and bad guys.  It is all here.

I was half expecting to see Roy Neary come out and say, "Where the fuck am I?"

The action in this film, like all of Indy flicks to date, seems effortless, virtousic.  From what I understand Spielberg eschewed the CGI and opted for the refined techniques of stunt work to preserve the realistic continuity of the series.  He chose wisely.

Ford and the rest deliver a masterful performance in the action hero genre.  Crystal Skull transcends most demographics too.  Its hero is in his 60s and I found that one of the most interesting features of this film.  Indy’s wisdom and his not-that-much slower pace were cool as hell.  This movie was equally appealing to the young as well as the old.

My daughter seemed to enjoy ever part of it, even the cool scene where a sea of army ants descended in waves upon Indy and his pursuers and dragged one Soviet down an ant hole. I imagine similar experiences haunt the employees of Taco Bell that are too tired to stay awake when the shift is slow.

Later that day when we had time to reflect on it, I asked my daughter what was her favorite part of the movie.  Would it be the sword fight that took place on two Jeeps racing through the jungle?  Would it be the descent down triple waterfalls?   

Indy and Marion getting married she said. 

I can’t say that was my favorite part.  That was my least favorite part and reason why is because the movie was over at the point. There seems to be some finality to the adventure now that Indy is hitched. Perhaps the next installment will be titled Indiana Jones and the Riding Mower of Naperville, Ill.

Crystal Skull is the bested only by the legendary original, which transformed cinema, the action genre in particular.  If Crystal Skull had come first, perhaps it would have assumed that place in cinematic history.  Alas, though, there is nothing entirely different that we have not seen so much in the early Indy films only more of it better and more often then the middle flicks.

Crystal Skull is better than Temple of Doom and Last Crusade and nearly every other action film I can think of since the original Raiders.  Why that is relates to the uniquely nuance performance of Ford’s portrayal of Indy this time. 

Ford plays Indy older, wiser a bit slower, but still amazing.  Indy seems to have enjoyed his life of adventure and is not ready to hand over the hat to his kid yet if another adventure beckons and hey at the money they are making on this film, another one could be here before you know it.

Matthew J. DeReno is a writer living in Pittsburgh.