Back to Basics
Ford, Lucas, Spielberg and Allen make a triumphant return to form.
BY INDIANA GREGORY

H
ello. All the spoilers you could possibly want are available at the bottom of this review -- but first read the thing.

Awesome year, 1981: "Genius of Love" rocks the boomboxes, Mtv launches, plus some altogether unexpected breakout
hit movie called
Raiders of the Lost Ark suddenly becomes an enduring Standard of Greatness for my generation. Almost
equally impressive year, 1984:
Purple Rain redefines Pop, and both the brilliant Dune and stunning Indiana Jones and the
Temple of Doom
are direly underrated (frankly, I wish they could have made about twenty more episodic delights like
Temple of Doom; and Short Round stays in the picture). And then...let us be generous and say, Sluggish year, 1989:
Poison (?) rule the airwaves,
Ghostbusters II gets a "nice try," and here comes Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade -- a
major hit but, frankly, more a burlesque of the beloved franchise (see only: paunchy villain who terrifyingly transforms
into a wizened "Doc Brown") than a top-shelf entry.

And...
now?

Happy days are here again!

Returning in haste like a total dork from the earliest available screening of
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal
Skull
(and arriving extremely early for it; an astounding adventure in itself), it is a pleasure to report that the movie is fresh.
Genuinely fresh. And yet familiar. Thrilling! Here we have the genius of Hollywood -- when it's firing on all cylinders --
made manifest: To give people what they want, don't dumb it down anywhere near the threshold of pain, and have a ball!

What we really have here is the ideal merger of the West's two reigning Titans of Entertainment: Producer/creator (with
Philip Kaufman) George Lucas; and Director Steven Spielberg. After plenty of missteps (
Howard the Duck? War of the
Worlds?
), the two come together on Crystal Skull as though some singular notion germinated into both American Graffiti
and
Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Crystal Skull represents, in more ways than one, a happy marriage.

And speaking of
Graffiti -- every other pundit on Planet Earth is going to tell you the machinations of the plot, so I'll stick
to a sketch (above the Spoiler Line) and assume that you know about what I am talking. This movie opens in 1957 with
an hilarious take on the Paramount Logo-Exotic Mountain transition, and careens -- via Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog" (how
great it must be to afford such rights) -- straight into hot-rodding teenagers (Hello, George!) zooming through an alleged
Nevada desertscape, amidst army trucks peopled with disturbingly pallid guys with sour expressions. Russians? Yep! In
short order and following a bit of bloodless, offscreen bang-bang, we find ourselves involved in one of the movie's four
(count 'em!) knockout, brilliantly directed chase sequences -- this one contained within the vast government warehouse
you've seen in the trailers a thousand times already because it doesn't give away too much. The gist? Not only does the
good ol' Ark (and returning composer John Williams' terrific theme thereof) make its happy little cameo, but the KGB
heavies find what they seek: A puzzlingly magnetic sarcophagus about which our hero, conveniently, knows little.

Oh, yeah: Our hero. Returning as Henry "Indiana" Jones II is Harrison Ford (
Regarding Henry) and he's a movie godsend,
and he's one of our greatest actors, and he should never do boring stuff anymore, and he should just do stuff like this until
he's ninety-nine. Like an old friend who doesn't actually exist, Indy is an incredibly welcome sight on the big screen
(Since the man last wore that hat, consider the crap through which we've sat!), and my only complaint regarding the
cinematic franchise's insane nineteen-year hiatus may be summed up via a rhetorical question from his ally, Professor
"Ox" Oxley (John Hurt,
Alien [!]), who, near Crystal Skull's end, intones, "How much of human life is lost in waiting?"

























The rest of the movie is composed of three primary components, the first of which is Supporting Cast. Although they are
afforded some fun and odd lines, Brits Hurt, Jim Broadbent (as Indy's college Dean) and especially Ray Winstone (as
Indy's kinda-sorta ally-rival) function mainly as struts to the main arc, and do not bear close inspection. Some young guy
who is being shoved into Media Darlinghood plays (see Spoilers below, if you want)...um...
a potential filial entity to
Indy
, and the mega-ubiquitous Cate Blanchett (with Louise Brooks' hair and extremely silly Boris-&-Natasha dialect: Indy
even mocks her "wubbleyous") chews the absolute living hell out of the scenery as Colonel Professor Irina Spalko -- a
favoured minion of Stalin who happens to be really good at delivering all of her own exposition, i.e.: "I know things before
anyone else!" Much like George Lucas himself, Spalko is bent on global psychic domination (using the titular knick-knack)
-- plus she's basically Belloq w/sword skills.

Which leads us to the second primary component of
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull -- this being the
action sequences. For a movie so outlandishly thick with supernatural-hoodoo explanations that if Mulder joined Robert
Stack from
Unsolved Mysteries to discuss it, they'd both be giggling embarrassedly into their hands like little schoolgirls
(pictograph this, writing-of-the-gods that -- all in service of a climax that's essentially
Close Encounters: Family Style  --
Hello, Steven!), it must be stated that the project nonetheless kicks ass and takes names with terrific authority. Spielberg's
work hasn't been this lively in ages, and even presently I feel a bit like a ten-year-old, trying to decide whether I liked the
Campus Chase or the Jungle Chase best. Actually, I'm going to have to say Campus Chase -- because, despite some very
satisfying slam-bang business plus horrifying insectoid attackers, the Jungle Chase also features an extremely, deeply,
profoundly offensive (if mercifully brief) subsequence we're just gonna call The Monkey Atrocity -- it was like watching
Roger Moore do that Tarzan yodel all over again, only a thousand times worse (
and sloppily CG) -- and as soon as this
movie arrives on DVD from Singapore (probably this Wednesday), I'm going to edit it out. But the sword fights and
road-raging and shoot-the-rapids business? Oh -- Glory Hallelujah. More.

Of course, all of this racing about serves to bring us closer to god -- well, to the weird, made-up Peruvian
tribe-who-live-in-the-walls' god, anyway -- which -- without giving too much away (above the Spoiler Line) -- is really
outrageously darned silly if you think about it. And then, at the same time, it isn't. Anyway, even though the final action
setpiece involves obvious lifts from latter-day
Star Trek (Spalko -- ever-eager to explain everything to death -- reveals to
us that the Crystal Skull's clumsy owner [He'd lose his own head if it weren't attached!] is of a "hive mind" -- you know,
like the Borg), and even the big ceiling fan from
Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the third component is the same
stuff you're gonna hear every day if you have New Agey friends or hang around at the Bodhi Tree too much. But really,
this is what Indiana Jones movies have been about all along -- a bunch of jumping and capering in service of Spiritual
Ideals -- and, in this sense,
Crystal Skull certainly does not disappoint. In fact, I can tell you right now what the movie is
really about. Are you ready? Here 'tis:
GREED IS BAD; KNOWLEDGE IS GOOD (BUT GREED FOR KNOWLEDGE
IS ALSO BAD).
(Hello, Messrs. Lucas and Spielberg; may I please have a hundred million dollars for study purposes?)

































For me, though -- and I doubt I'm alone in this -- the happiest aspect of
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal
Skull
is the saucy presence of Indy's first and best cinematic squeeze, squeeze, Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen, Animal
House),
who returns here with all of the fire (and more) which made the chemistry in Raiders such a pleasure. Altthough
the re-teaming is obvious -- and as contrived in its execution as many of the plot's twists and turns -- Allen's presence
really brings this franchise the element it had been lacking: Love. Plus some of its very best dialogue (Russian truck scene):
                                                                            
MARION: I'm sure I wasn't the only one to get on with my life; you must have had other women over the years.
INDY: There were a few; but they all had the same problem.
MARION: Yeah? What was that?
INDY: They weren't you.
                                                                            
Respectfully submitted to Producers: Gimme dialogue like
that, and -- regardless of how much CG crap flies around at the
end -- I'll join you for any Adventure.

SPOILERS 'N' NITPICKS...BELOW!

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Entertainment Value: 12/13
Style: 12/13
Philosophical Insight: 12/13

-Gregory Weinkauf, 18 May, 2008

This ÜberCiné Review is dedicated to the ÜberCiné site: From Sith to Indy, Happy Third Anniversary!
And to Paramount Pictures -- for my first real taste of the business. And to Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall.
REVIEWS
ÜberCiné

Attention, Hollywood: We like this. A lot.
© Paramount Pictures / Lucasfilm
"Botox!"
© Paramount Pictures / Lucasfilm
Karen Allen is visited by the ghost of Jerry Garcia.
© Paramount Pictures / Lucasfilm
HERE THERE BE SPOILERS!

1. I'm okay with the concept of "aliens" being in some way "divine" and thus giving primitive people aqueducts and
Gameboys and whatever; what
does bother me about this movie's logic, however, is that some highly-advanced, incredibly
powerful, interdimensional beings who manage to transform into Scatman Crothers and then make Cate Blanchett's eyes
catch on fire ("You like Knowledge, Doc?") also manage (oops!) to get locked in the 'burbs of Peru in a big, crazy, highly
impractical Rube Goldberg device (with stairs clearly designed for the videogame version) -- unless of course this has
something to do with their skulls being basically easily-fumbled polycarbonate footballs.

2. Somebody online recently asked: "Is this movie as racist as the previous three?" -- and, yeah, it kinda is. Or let's call it
xenophobic. This is a problem I've had with the otherwise terrific Indiana Jones franchise all along -- from Spielberg's
beloved "Hovitos" onward, Indy is the meddling Whitie stealing what belongs to Others; however, despite
Crystal Skull's
particularly whack-job "Doritos" (or whatever they're called -- they live IN THE WALLS, in the wilds of the Universal
backlot; go ask 'em), I'm willing to grant a pass this time -- because (perchance with screenwriter David Koepp taking
note of the popularity of
The Lord of the Rings or at least the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie [which also swiped this
concept from the former]), Indy's goal this time -- much as in the excellent
Temple of Doom -- is to return the object to
its rightful owners -- and in this case, it just happens to be the eponymous polycarbonate football.

3. Where exactly does Mac get those itty-bitty little flashing-red-LED transmitter devices -- in
1957???

4. Oh, come on now: Nobody could ever survive a "nucular" blast in an ostentatiously-labelled "LEAD-LINED"
refrigerator! ('Twas the scene that "got me," though -- as an adult at the movies, I find that happy surprises arrive
painfully infrequently.) The almost-surreal nature of the Nuke Sequence -- much like the Flying Saucer Climax -- really
doesn't feel of a piece with the Indy series -- but it's so strange and fun that I've embraced it anyway.

5. Oh, come on now: A tenured professor, who can count in Greek, doesn't know how to say NUCLEAR?

6. Why don't the Russians simply kill Mutt Williams? They reveal in the opening sequence that they have no qualms about
murdering people, and Mutt is 100% irritation and trouble to them. Given the setup, it makes no sense that they'd keep him.

7. Three of
Crystal Skull's leads get crotch-shots, played mostly for laughs. A nude Indy gets his ding-dong scrubbed; a
dangling Spalko puts the knee-squeeze on a belligerent ant; and there was something crotchy involving Mutt and those
monkeys (although, honestly, I could barely force myself to look). The previous Indy movies didn't do Crotch; what's up
with this, Steven?

8. Harrison Ford actually says, "I've got a bad feeling about this" -- and oh, the sweet
Star Wars ache that brings!

9. Speaking of Great Harrison Ford Lines, there's a bit inside the Interdimensional Flying Saucer Thingie where you just
know that Spalko's going to get "the Belloq treatment" due to her arrogance -- but before that, she accuses Indy of not
believing; to which Indy replies: "Oh, I believe, sister; that's why I'm
down here." Ladies and geeks, that's a great line!

10. NOT ENOUGH OF THE "INDY" THEME USED IN THE MOVIE PROPER! And John Williams, please! -- using a
variation of The Indy Theme for a Mutt sequence? I don't care if you share a surname; that's blasphemy!

11. The sky outside Hangar 51 in "Nevada" looks way too digitally enhanced. It's nifty -- but the lighting doesn't match,
and I really do think that the Indiana Jones franchise is best served by its inherent organic nature, and by keeping the CGI,
while useful, to truly "special" effects. (Hint: Next time, Steven, TRAVEL.)

12. I love the White Wedding at the end -- particularly because Spielberg almost made me vomit -- and then deftly stifled
the urge. I'm talking about the doors blowing open, and Indy's hat wafting over to The Sickenly Overmarketed Kid -- who
then very nearly (gorge rising!) puts it on (
NO!!!!) -- only to be stopped by his alleged dad, who dons it, Amen.

13. SPECIAL SPOILER, COMING SOON!

~Gregory
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