Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has often been criticized by the series fans, and unfairly I might add, for not being the ‘old’ Indy they grew up on. Well no, Crystal Skull isn’t like the first three, and the character of Indiana Jones has evolved, just like he evolved from Raiders to Last Crusade. Now 19 years later, Indy has found himself an older and wiser man not capable of some of the things he might have been able to do as a younger man, but he’s still very much the Indy we all knew and loved, rugged, imperfect and always going the hard way about things. It’s hard when praising this movie not addressing it’s very vocal critics, especially when their ‘criticisms’ either misunderstand certain aspects or are actually part of the film’s biggest strengths. First of which, this isn’t the old Indy many grew up on, it’s still Indiana Jones and perhaps more of it, but why should Crystal Skull be like the first three? Not just has time in the story passed 19 years, but naturally, as the older Indy movies were inspired by 30’s serial action flicks as the films were set in the 30’s, as the character is now living in the 50’s, what was the popular entertainment then? Sci-fi b movies. The Indiana Jones franchise have always been fantasies of the movies from those era’s, Crystal Skull is no different.

Another point I do not agree on, is the movie not feeling like an Indiana Jones movie. As I said before, it’s more of Indiana Jones than perhaps ever before. The film is often filled with images of Indy reflecting on a car, or a wall, or through tapestry, always with his classic fedora on. It also includes legendary bullwhip moments, one of which will be remembered as a classic Indiana Jones moment where Indy tries swinging to a vehicle in which Irina Spalko (the villian of the movie) is driving in, but swings back crashing into the truck behind him and replied “damn, that was closer than I thought”, the two Russian soldiers next to him of course looking at him stupidly instead of taking the chance of knocking him out. Much of the reason I titled this entry (which a line as cheesy as to be expected from a franchise like this) is because Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is approached to the icon of the character rather. Indiana Jones has obviously become more of an iconic character over the years than he was before, in the film we see much of what we always thought and imagined the character having adventures of, even if in the original trilogy these aspects would only be for a single (and very memorable) scene. We see temples with cobwebs (the attention to detail in this film is amazing, I might add), it opens with a scene in the desert, there’s a scene towards the finale in which a room if filled with artifacts of almost every nation and empire of early history, a chase scene (the series has always been built around a massive chase scene closing the second act of the film’s) in the jungle, there are so many things about the film that feel as if Koepp was looking at the icon and legend of the character and series and presented this film. However, it’s not all a love note to the series, there are more than a few set pieces that have Indiana Jones written all over them even if we hadn’t ever seen similiar scenes before. Such as the prologue action sequence in the Area 51 warehouse (that we saw at the end of Raiders, but still, this is much larger expanded and despite a cameo from the ark, they’re not there for the ark), the scene has utterly perfect tension, all leading to a breakout moment where we hear John Williams’ classic score kick in and Indy takes off running as bullets fly after him, moments like this should give any fan of the series goosebumps. Another set piece is a cemetary scene where Indy and Mutt (played by Shia LaBeouf, an unofficial sidekick who we later learn to be more than just that, those who have seen the movie will know and those who haven’t probably guessed it anyway) go to Orellana’s “cradle” (or rather, his tomb) to fetch where they believe the crystal skull to be. Indiana Jones was always seen as a ‘graverobber’, and in this scene, we see him literally being just that. It’s a set piece that feels just like Indiana Jones, which truly baffles me when fans complain that it doesn’t feel like an Indy movie.

As stated before, this is much more of a sci-fi Indiana Jones film to reflect the 50’s than the original trilogy was, and rightfully so. It’s not a sci-fi film, it’s an Indiana Jones film with sci-fi elements. All very typical and corny stuff like aliens with enlarged heads and ufo’s, however it’s not soulless, it’s treated with the same respect that the series was treated with before. Spielberg, Lucas and Ford each love this series very dear, and Koepp though being a hit & miss screenwriter respects the franchise with this film. I don’t want to go into plot details that have either already been said or are irrelevant to the point of this entry, so I’ll keep things brief on that regard. This film has more in common with the original Raiders of the Lost Ark and Last Crusade than it has to do with Temple of Doom (contrary to popular opinion). The film strikes up a certain balance that the other two sequels lacked, a balance between characters/story, and story/action. Temple of Doom’s story basically revolved around it’s action set pieces (in fact, it’s action were basically pieces that were cut from Raiders, they just took those pieces and created a story around them), as far as action films go, it’s about as entertaining and awesome as you can get, but the characters are a weak point. Indy is as great as ever, but despite Short Round and Willie never being half as annoying as people criticized them for, they never contributed anything; they were just there, and perhaps added a little more fun, but there was no depth. Crusade was different, it’s story and set pieces revolved around the character’s and their troubles, even in the action sequences, character’s motivations and current crisis/situation was the heart of all of it. It sacrificed some of the ‘ooh aah’ suspense that Temple and Raiders had for more of human emotion, the suspense is the weight of one’s life being in danger, and for once in the series, you genuinely believed and felt that one was going to die. The stakes were raised by it’s human drama, as opposed of going the normal threequel route by adding more unbelievable action pieces and convoluted plot lines. Crystal Skull is certainly more in line with Crusade than it is Temple, but it does have the unbelievability and exaggerration of Temple. Where Crusade sacrificed alot of that for it’s character points and succeeded for that, it made that film more important and respected it by not repeating that. There’s no reason to have done the exact same in Skull, and Spielberg and co. didn’t. The characters are the strong point of the film just like Crusade, there’s much of the similiar humor, but it has the suspense that I loved about Raiders and Temple. Maybe the crystal skull mythology is a bunch of wishy washy, but it’s an interesting mythology regardless and is entertaining to watch unfold. At the end of the day, Indy could have stayed behind with Spalko, perhaps they might have spared him more than her and let him know what the human mind is capable of handling, but at the end of the day (and literally, perhaps this was intentional, it was the end of that day) he got the point. The inter-dimensional beings’ wealth was knowledge, it was never about the gold (that Mac presumedly died trying to collect), it was about their infinite knowledge of the universe and existence that was their wealth, but was it Indy’s? No. He had his woman back, he now had a son, and a old friend who had gained his sanity back. That’s all that ever mattered to Indy, and it is perfectly realized through it’s ending.

Other criticisms that have been said about the film, is it’s “cartoonish effects”, for the most part the CGI is pretty excellent with a few scenes here and there with a noticably ‘cartoonish’ look, yet if you pay attention to those sequences, there’s sort of a point to it. I mean look at it, we have random moments of prairie dogs at the end of over the top moments as a reminder of it’s dark stab at humor, a tarzan reference (self explanatory), giant man eating ants, and added detail of an ‘other worldly’ jungle that was purposefully added for that very reason and effectively accomplishes what it set it for. The rest of the CG in the film is just about the best they could have done, especially a sequence in which a ufo breaks apart an old temple and the landscape begins to circulate with the speed and movements of the ufo as it rises and disappears into “spaces between spaces” (which I believe was never supposed to make logical sense, c’mon, look at who said it, I doubt Indy understood it either), and the water of the lake/rivers breaks through. It’s a dramatic sequence with the expectedly perfect score by John Williams, with utterly impressive CGI. As well as a moment where Indy rolls out of a fridge after surviving a nuclear bomb and he climbs to the hill to look at the giant mushroom cloud (which I forgot to mention early on perfect moments of suspense in the movie, because of it’s absurdity and the anti-climax of Indy hiding in a fridge as the nuke begins to detonate).

Among the Raiders comparisons, mostly due to the two’s story structures that are strikingly similiar. For example, the prologue as with all the Indy films, it introducts us to Indy’s new rival/nemesis and sets the stage for what’s to come. In Raiders we see Belloq come and take Indy’s success, Indy had “poor choice in friends” (also with Mac in Skull’s opening scene), something similiar is reflected in Crystal Skull. Spalko does much of the same throughout the film, she uses Indy to get what she wants, after that, he can just go ahead and die. He of course comes of help later on (finding the skull, getting to akator – finding the ark, Belloq takes it), though not as intentional as presented in both film’s prologues. Though as mentioned before, Skull has more sci-fi elements, both films hint at something massive to come, and despite Spielberg’s statements prior to Skull’s release that there wouldn’t be aliens (a flat out lie), Skull didn’t cop out of it’s ending. The jungles that protected the lost city promised a other worldly and unnatural presence, and when the film reaches it’s climax, is goes truly apeshit. Not all that different from Raider’s climax, with ghosts, lightning, towers of fire, coming out of the ark. The temple ripping itself apart, the skeletons morphing into one being, Spalko’s demise calling back to the exploding and melting heads from Raiders. The script was very obviously written from a Raiders fan, less so than Darabont’s script (which is awful and references Raiders far too much, to the point of insult), obviously a fan’s dream of a sequel to Raiders but set in the sci-fi themed 50’s.

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a perfect Indiana Jones movie. No, I didn’t say it’s a perfect movie, but it is a damn excellent one, and after so many years of struggling to find the right script, they settled on one that respected the legacy of the series and added a damn fine fourth film that promises a hopeful future for the series that was believed to have ended with Indy, his father, Marcus and Sallah riding off into the sunset. It has all of the elements a Indiana Jones movie should have, and more. It’s quality and classic blockbuster filmmaking and entertainment, it’s fun from beginning to end, has characters we’ve genuinely care for over the years and introduces new memorable characters as well, it’s a genuine quality film and an entertaining one, and one of the finest blockbusters of this decade. This was very much the Indiana Jones movie we had waited for, though it will shamefully take several viewings for people to see it for what it really is, if they will ever take their fan blinders off that prevent them from seeing it for what it is.