Spielberg and Lucas Get Back to Basics

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” reunites a team that redefined the Hollywood action blockbuster a generation ago and revives a character that has become an American movie icon.

The new film is already the biggest opening picture of this year, and while it should please any audience looking for escapist fun, it has a substantial number of fans fuming.

Fans have been waiting nearly two decades for another installment in the Indiana Jones series while Steven Spielberg has been trying to make more serious films and George Lucas has been devoting himself more to digital effects and his Star Wars movies.

After the surprise success of “Star Wars” in 1977, Lucas and Spielberg spent the 1980s entertaining movie audiences with their slick, big-budget re-envisioning of cheesy but beloved action-adventure sci-fi serials of the 1930s and 40s that had been designed for children’s Saturday matinees.

Newly created action hero Harrison Ford went on to star in two more Star Wars episodes, plus a trilogy of earthbound adventures spotlighting danger-prone archaeologist Indiana Jones.

Then he, like Spielberg, concentrated on more serious work, while not ruling out another sequel if the script were right.
Apparently Ford and Spielberg approved several new Indiana Jones screenplays, only to be vetoed by Lucas until all finally agreed to do what became the fourth episode, which opened in over 4000 theatres last week.

This fourth Indiana Jones movie is exactly what one would expect from a sequel to a popular franchise by popular producer-directors. That is to say, it blends favorite characters and situations with a few new twists, lots of references to previous films, plenty of excitement, a little bit of character development, and nothing particularly surprising.

It naturally no longer packs the fresh punch that the original “Raiders of the Lost Ark” delivered back in 1981. But then, modern audiences often fail to recognize that even that film was simply a flashy rehash of the low-budget kiddie movies from a generation or two before, and a well-executed rip-off of some memorable sequences in the then-best-selling novel “Sphinx” (from which a disappointingly mediocre movie adaptation was also made).

Computer-generated effects get their share of screen time in the new movie, but certainly not to the annoying extent that most recent action films (or the latest three Star Wars movies) incorporate them.

It doesn’t quite recapture the warm, fuzzy chemistry that the third installment, “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” had between Ford’s Indy and Sean Connery as his father. It does come close in spots, with its bringing back a still spunky Karen Allen as the still spunky Marion Ravenwood from the first episode, and introducing Shia LaBeof as “Mutt Williams,” whose relationship to Indy quickly becomes apparent.

This film, however, is really much closer in style and spirit to the second episode, “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.” Like that film, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” contains maybe a good 20 minutes of plot scattered throughout an additional 100 minutes of almost nonstop action, punctuated every so often by either clever wisecracks or creepy fantasy elements, or both.

Both films are a lot of fun, but both are pretty light on substance, although the new movie tries to make it seem like it’s being more “significant” and throws in a bit of obvious propaganda here and there, sometimes apparent and sometimes more subtle, ironic, or even ambivalent. For example, did the Western world eventually become the Soviet regime without even realizing it, or vice versa, or both? Is pursuit of knowledge the true treasure of humanity, or is too much knowledge a sure means of self-destruction?

It’s obvious from the main thrust of the story that Spielberg has never quite given up on his “E.T.,” “Close Encounters,” “A.I.,” and “War of the Worlds” fascination. He also throws in jabs at 1950s Cold War paranoia, blacklisting, and atomic bomb testing, along with, perhaps for Lucas, .some pre-"American Graffiti” homages to hot rodding and 50s diners.

In “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” the action is always foremost, with logic often little more than an afterthought. This is an adventure-thriller-fantasy, and both the over-the-top threats and the ridiculously bizarre methods the heroes manage to use to survive their perils is part of the fun. Anyone looking for realism or carefully reasoned explanations is obviously at the wrong movie.

The supporting characters, even if not very deeply written, are well-played by actors the likes of Cate Blanchett, Ray Winstone, John Hurt, and Jim Broadbent, with Igor Jijikine as an appropriately larger than life Russian heavy.

It is Harrison Ford, of course, who carries the entire film, but Shia LaBoef does a credible job as perhaps the heir to the franchise, and Karen Allen is in fine form, looking even less the worse for wear than Ford after nearly three decades since their last meeting.

Maybe the most refreshing aspect of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” is its use of a couple in their 50s and 60s as credible central characters of a pretty intense action movie, with the 20-something teen/tween idol as more of a tagalong sidekick.

In short, it’s a great summer movie with few pretensions of being anything else but, and this time is a modern-edged throwback to classic 1950s sci-fi thrillers instead of the 1930s and 40s action serials.