In preparation for the fourth movie, and because I got a review copy of the new DVD box-set of the films, I watched all three of the original Indiana Jones movies, Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade.
Since I watch them on a somewhat regular basis (probably about once a year) these movies have aged with me, meaning my perception of them isn’t so much colored by the years as they develop in a similar way as children. Raiders still winds up being the best of the batch, which Temple of Doom coming off not as bad as conventional wisdom now paints it as being.
Crusade, though, is now impossible to watch as anything other than the beginning of the end for George Lucas. There are more outright sight-gags and more moments that he probably giggled over but which didn’t wind up being nearly as funny on-screen as he thought they were going to be. (Basically anything involving Marcus Brody, a character that I actually physically feel bad for since in this movie he’s portrayed as a bumbling dolt compared to the savvy advisor and conscious to Indy’s “jump first” persona.) It’s not that the movie is bad, but there’s clearly a sense that it’s trying to be “funny” and not “entertaining” in the same vein that Raiders was. Still, the chemistry between Harrison Ford and Sean Connery saves the movie and it’s strongest when the two are together on-screen.
The Indy film-fest did, overall, create a good base for me to later see the new flick.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was, I’ll admit, a lot of fun to watch though with some obvious problems. Let’s dispense with those problems first:
The clumsy way that we’re informed of the death of Henry Jones Sr. and Brody completely takes the viewer out of the movie and really betrays Lucas’ influence on the screenplay. Only he would make the assumption that the audience is so stupid that their passing needs to be laid in this heavy-handed a manner.
Cate Blanchett’s accent. Come on.
I don’t actually have a problem with the very ending of the flick other than it’s the same finale as X-Files: Fight the Future with the alien space ship rising out of its hiding place and ascending into the beyond.
Let’s be honest: The whole red ants thing was a tad ridiculous. This scene, more than anything else in the last decade or so, points to the undeniable fact that CGI will never be as engaging or frightening as practical effects since it’s hard to feel on-edge about something that’s so clearly been computer-designed.
So what worked?
I actually thought the interactions between Indy and Mutt Williams was both believable and enjoyable. Shia Labouf’s performance isn’t nearly as bad as people have painted it as being, aside from a couple of moments where he’s channeling a character out of an early Roger Corman teen “bras and knives” flick.
I’m convinced John Hurt’s performance is based on him not knowing entirely where he was and what movie he was in. It’s so out there that it actually comes full circle into being the most grounded character of the entire movie.
Ray Winstone’s character needs to be given his own web-based animated shorts to flesh out his back-story, even if it’s Indy-free stories that we’re given. Winstone is asked to be Convenient Plot Device more than once but he does so will gusto and sells the back-and-forth that his character is required to engage in.
Finally, Harrison Ford looks like he *wants* to be there, something that he hasn’t been able to pull off in quite a while. I’m not saying it’s his best turn as Indy but he finally looks like he’s trying to sell the character. The last time I remember seeing him do that is in Clear and Present Danger. He’s obviously just having fun returning to one of the two characters that made him a star and that comes through, even during the movie’s most illogical sequences.
Overall, though, this was a fun flick and I think it’s a worthy entry in the Indiana Jones franchise. I’m OK with it being the last Indy flick in much the same way that I was OK with Crusade being the last movie. Let’s now leave them for us to enjoy all four films as a complete set of the archeologist’s adventures (aside from the Young Indy series as well as the various comics incarnations, but you know what I mean).
