Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is worth the nineteen year wait. It is thrilling, exciting, funny and wondrous to look at it. It is a great movie.
It is also the most fun and least serious of all of the Indiana Jones films, though not to its detriment. It is wise not to repeat the lesson of Indy (Harrison Ford- duh) learning a great spiritual lesson and instead focuses on witty banter and character relationships. The film of course not a deep Bergman-esq drama, but the dialogue and character developments well written enough that we are interested in what is going on between the action sequences.
And what action sequences they are! After seeing tons of bad Hollywood summer blockbusters, it’s so refreshing to watch a film by a Spielberg or a Peter Jackson, whose big set pieces are exciting. I literarily jumped in my seat multiple times while watching this movie.
The picture also has probably the best villain of the four Indy films- Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett) the Soviet Communist with a quest for knowledge that gives her character some real depth. The fact that Blanchett is also the best performer ever to appear in the series gives the movie some real class. Not that the others actors need help. Ford has no trouble playing a believable older Indy, and Shia LeBeouf handles a part that could have become annoying very well. One does feel, however, that an opportunity was missed by excluding Sallah (John Rhys-Davies) from the movie, as the character played by Ray Winstone could have easily been re-written for Rhys-Davies with some minor altercations.
Crystal Skull could have easily been another Phantom Menace, placing special effects and technology before storytelling, but Spielberg clearly has not lost his touch for this material. The tone of the earlier films have not changed, despite the new setting of 1957. The picture is what all Indiana Jones should be- exciting adventures around the world, harking back to a more innocent age- ours, when we looked at the world with a bit of excitement and child like wonder. This movie made me believe that a great adventure was just around the corner.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)