Note: Before I begin this review I would just like to apologize for the condition of this site. Many of the links do not work at the moment as I am in the middle of a major overhaul. I'm am working hard to get all the coding done and should be up and running soon. And now, without further ado.....
The trunk of a car is opened. A man is pulled out and held a gunpoint. A second man is then removed from the trunk, his brown fedora thrown to the ground, followed by the man himself. He stands, dusts himself off, slowly walks to the dusty brown hat and picks it up, the music begins to swell, we see only his shadow on the car as the hat returns to his head, the camera pans to his unshaven face and he mutters one word: "Russians!" And just like that, Indy is back!
Yes, twenty something years after "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", Harrison Ford returns to the role and I, for lack of a better term, am pleased as punch. This is an absolute masterpiece, beginning to end. Anyone who does not have a good time with this movie is either high or has lost all sense of being young. I understand this is the internet generation and everyone has an opinion, but have we really all become so jaded in our old age? I actually read a review earlier today that said "this movie sucks balls." I'm going to give that writer the benefit of the doubt and assume he's some 12-14 year old emo kid playing "telephone tough guy" on his keyboard.
All of a sudden, everyone is so concerned about the plot and the plot holes. Come on! This is Indiana Frakkin Jones we're talking about here. Hitler tried to steal the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders, some dude pulled out a guys heart in Temple of Doom and the guy still lived, and in Last Crusade they drank water from the Holy Grail and it healed bullet wounds and turned Donovan into dust...We don't go to Indy movies to dissect the plot or to divine some spiritual truth. We go to see spectaclar chases, huge explosions, thousands upon thousand of bullets missing our heroes, strange exotic locations and to see Ford towering over the film like the star he is. Well...this is why I go to see them anyway, and this is the reason I loved the film so much, because it served those things up in spades.
Without giving away too much of the plot, the film opens with Indy being kidnapped by the Russians (it is the 50's now, no Nazis to be found) and taken to the same warehouse that the Ark was hidden in in Raiders (Kudos to the filmmakers for inserting a few bars of the Ark theme as the doors open, nice!). The Russians are led by Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett in a tight fitting grey outfit and black wig). However, the Ruskies are not here to find the Ark. They are here to steal the contents of a box that Indy examined ten years earlier from a crash in Roswell, New Mexico. Heh. Indy manages to locate the box (whose content's are "highly magnetic") using gunpowder and shotgun shells. This all leads to the first of several amazing chase sequences. This one sees Indy using his whip to nearly catch a runaway truck, riding a rocket car out into a desert nuclear test sight and finally escaping into a town straight out of E.T. The only problem is, this town is inhabited by nothing by mannequins and Indy is about to witness a nuclear test first hand. How he manages to escape I will leave for you to find out. Is it far fetched? Indeed? Satisfying? You bet!
I don't want to summarize the plot to death, it's been done so many times on so many websites. The rest of the film -in which Indy is joined by young Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf), Marion Ravenwood! (Karen Allen reprising her Raider's role, Yay!) and the eccentric Professor Oxley (John Hurt, chewing scenery nicely as always)- takes us from Indy's college (great chase sequence there) all the way to Peru (to locate the titular Crystal Skull) and into the Jungles of the Amazon in the search for El Dorado and supposedly the rightful home of said skull. You see, legend has it that the person who returns the skull to the city will then have access to the power to control the minds of others, a talent that Spalko (who claims to have psychic powers, though they are never really seen in the film) would very much like to get her hands on.
So through this all we get lots of chases, lots of firepower, waterfalls, giant ants (kind of like the scarabs in "The Mummy" films), machine guns missing at point blank range, trees used as catapults, ancient stone buildings that move and grind and change shape, swordfights on the back of two moving vehicles and an absolute GEM of a quicksand scene in which Indy attempts to "touch the bottom" before accepting the help of the most unlikely of sorts. This scene had me literally pissing myself.
Harrison Ford carries the role of Indy as well as ever. People have complaied that he's slower now, walks with a bit of a stoop. What the frak ever! We should all hope to look so good at 65. Nobody ever said Indy was immortal. It only stands to reason he would get older, wiser. It didn't matter one bit to me. I refuse to believe I'll ever get as cynical as some people today. I smiled the whole movie, like a big kid. No need to dissect every line, every plot hole, every perfomance. Ford knows the role inside out, and he's just as good as he was twenty and even thirty years ago. His verbal bouts with LaBeouf and Allen are spot on (if a little shorter than I would have liked, but whatever) and he still remains the only action hero who can jump off a motorcycle, climb through the back window of a car filled with KGB, beat them all up, jump out the other window, and land back on the motorcycle, while the familiar Dah da da Dah, music blares in the background. And because Indy is now older and wiser, he still manages to have time to teach his students about his trade as he is being chased. People have said Ford has gotten grumpy in his older age, but he shows no sign of it here and seems to have fun with the role.
LaBeouf fills the role of Mutt nicely. He is a talented kid and he and Ford play off each other well. "What are you, like 80?" he asks at one point. Mutt is a Brando-type character, who needs to fix his hair before being held at gunpoint and has no problems dipping his comb into your pop to do it. There is a history between Mutt and Indy, but I won't spoil it here...I'm sure anyone else onthe web would love to do that for you. Rumor has it that Shia has signed on to do more three more Indy films, and this movie certainly does set the stage for him to possibly take over for Ford (himself rumored for two more) in the future. He's hot right now, and it could be the right role for him.
Karen Allen, sadly, isn't given much to do. She kind of picks up where she left off in Raiders, arguing. She just gets lost in the plot, but it is nice to see her, and she certainly has aged well. I tend to wonder what scenes might have been left on the editing room floor. Have to wait for the DVD I guess. That being said, she uses her screen time well and her and Ford still have great chemistry between them. Blanchett on the other hand, I've never been a big fan of, and the script doesn't seem to know what to do with her. She mentions she can read minds, but we never really see it (she tries it on Indy early, but fails). She looks great in the outfit and wig, that's for sure, but we don't really know if she is supposed to be funny or scary. Maybe that's the idea. I didn't make the movie, so I can't say. She does her job well enough.
John Hurt is an island unto himself. He has carved a niche for himself recently as a scenery chewer (just look at his turn as the dictator in "V for Vendetta"). Here, he plays essentially the same role he played in "Skeleton Key", that of a seemingly crazy, babbling old man who knows more than he cares to share. His scenes are at the same time hilarious and heartbreaking because it is obvious that there is a great mind at work there, but it has been locked away because of the strain of his quest. Hurt plays the part perfectly, and makes for some good laughs along the way.
The direction is top notch, with Spielberg diving into his bag of tricks and pulling out all the stops. It feels like only yesterday that "The Last Crusade" came out, and they get the same look and feel here twenty years later. The cinematography has the look and feel of an 80s film, as do the sound effects and music. The musical score is classic Indy, and peaks at all the right moments. Kudos to Lucas and Spielberg for directing this with a child-like touch.
The climax of the film feels like total Spielberg, and some may not get the reference to another of his famous films, but for me, it worked. Some will hate it, some will love it, and while I am in the latter camp, I can see why some may be put off. It's a ballsy play, and you'll just have to decide for yourself. What, you want me to do it for you? Frak off!
I'm humming the theme music as I write this review. Tat may be the best recommendation I can give it. Indy is back in a big way and I am still a fan. The film had everything I wanted to see and delivered in bunches. I hope you'll give it a try. I'm not going to tell you to suspend your disbelief, but I would encourage you to approach the film as you did twenty years ago, when you were a little younger, a little more open to the fun that an Indy film brings, and for God's sake, don't be so frakkin emo! Life's not that tough. God! I dunno who is grumpier, Ford or myself....
