And it’s not like there was ever a strong chance the movie would be great anyway, the nineteen year gap between movies no doubt hurting this already unusual entry in a series that was thought completed. It belongs to the relatively recent tradition of cinematic afterthoughts (Douglas Adams’ “And Another Thing” analogy comes to mind) that include The Godfather Part III, Superman Returns, Men in Black 3, Live Free or Die Hard, and Toy Story 3 (also Toy Story 4). And only the last of those examples has been any good. Also, the concept had a long gestating period and was originated by George Lucas, which in addition to the numerous scripts written and turned down (including one promisingly from Frank Darabont), before a finalized draft was reached wouldn’t have bode well for any movie. So it shouldn’t have been too much of a surprise when Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull itself didn’t turn out good.
The movie is set in 1957, where Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) is still doing his usual high risk adventurous archaeology work while teaching on the side. After losing a relic to Soviet scientist Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett), he is approached by a young greaser called Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf) to help rescue his mother and a mutual archaeologist friend who were kidnapped after finding a crystal skull in Peru. The now hidden skull is believed to hold the power to finding the Lost City of Gold. And so Indy and his new companion embark on this expedition to South America, KGB agents in close pursuit.
Plot-wise, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is dumb, but only about as much so as the previous entries in the series. It takes its structure directly from Raiders of the Lost Ark, beginning with the end of a separate adventure where Indy loses an artifact to the villain. Subsequently, he learns of another artifact that would be extremely powerful to the current U.S. enemy and the tool to finding it is in the possession of an old colleague. On the way to retrieving it, he crosses paths with both an old flame and the same villain, and the two sides repeatedly gain the upper hand in their race to the plot device which ends with the villain being killed by the power they unleashed and Indy and friends narrowly escaping. As much as people like to complain about the fridge scene or aliens as jumping-the-shark moments for this franchise, on a whole, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull plays its story very safe. And that may be one of its biggest problems -much like how the major weakness of The Force Awakens was its reliance on the same general story trajectory of A New Hope. However unlike The Force Awakens, which made up for this through compelling new characters and conflicts, much of Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’s cast are underwritten, underdeveloped, and their personalities told more often than shown, even Indy’s.
That’s not to say Harrison Ford isn’t invested in his performance; on the contrary he’s clearly thoroughly enjoying once more playing this character he’s always loved. And the fact that he’s still doing his own stunt work especially shows this. But Indy’s not written well. He, and many of the other characters, have really poor dialogue, though he suffers for it a little more than most. But what’s perhaps most disappointing is the fact that the film is set two decades after The Last Crusade and Indy isn’t any different a character. He never had a ton of depth to begin with, but this movie portrays him in more or less the exact same motions in the 50s as in the 30s despite his advancing age and experience. He even wears the same Clark Kent teaching outfit and it feels more than ever like a costume –though maybe that’s the intent. To invoke Star Wars again, I’m not expecting an old Indy to be as profoundly damaged and cynical as old Luke Skywalker, but I’d like some growth out of him, perhaps a different worldview or perspective on archaeology that would no doubt come with age and I don’t know, having personally fought Nazis but now living through the Cold War.
Then there’s the rest of the cast. It’s a joy to see Karen Allen as Marion again, but outside of a few moments and deliberate call-backs to Raiders, such as in her introduction, she’s mostly filling an obligatory role: both as a returning fan favourite and to be the connective tissue between Indy and Mutt. Her relationship with Indy is fairly weak, and while I definitely highly prefer Marion over an alternative love interest half his age, the reigniting of their romance isn’t given enough thought and time to matter all that much in the end. Cate Blanchett can play a villain very well as anyone who’s seen Thor: Ragnarok can attest to, and she comes close here as a kind of blend between Belloq and Elsa Schneider. However there’s nothing much substantive to her and her Russian accent needed some improvement. The Russians in general have no defining attribute, serving exactly the same purpose as Nazis in previous films, with little difference in their goals and menace. Ray Winstone is another good actor working with a terrible script, one that has his character double-cross Indy twice for no reason other than to emphasize his duplicity -something which may have had some effect if we knew or cared at all about his relationship with Indy instead of just making him turn within the first five minutes. And with Jim Broadbent merely functioning as the new Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott is paid tribute to by having a statue of him beheaded), John Hurt’s Ben Gunn-inspired Harold Oxley is the only interesting new character of the movie. This is in large part due to Hurt’s performance, rarely did he ever give a bad one, but he’s also the only character who really adds something new to the character dynamics. Though he wasn’t the only attempt.
At last we must talk about Shia LaBeouf, one of the most condemned elements of the movie, and that too is an overblown criticism. In fact I can actually see how this character would work. Mutt is a blatant homage to 50’s greasers -he literally enters the movie wearing Marlon Brando’s outfit from The Wild One in perhaps the least subtle visual reference George Lucas has composed since the first Star Wars. And as a greaser, he’s not terribly bright, he’s a tough guy and he’s confrontational. But the biggest offence seems to be that he’s Indy’s son, and the way the movie handles this reveal, both in the foreshadowing and the character reactions to it, is clumsy at best. Nobody takes it with reasonable human emotion, immediately resorting to cracking jokes about it. Giving Indy a son isn’t a bad idea though. Lucas’ idea for the character too, that he had to be just as much a disappointment to Indy as Indy was to his own father, is a great concept. But the story simply doesn’t allow this relationship to meet its full potential and most of that isn’t LaBeouf’s fault. Sure, his performance isn’t very good and he’s lacking convincing chemistry with both Ford and Allen; but it’s not emphatically bad, LaBeouf really just wasn’t the right fit for this character, and the poorly written relationships and character development didn’t help that at all. Shia LaBeouf was just the guy nerd culture decided to hate for a time because of Transformers, and that’s probably why his presence in this movie was so reviled.
But above all, what hurts Kingdom of the Crystal Skull most is in its blandness. Temple of Doom was bad too, but it was at least interesting and outrageous. Here there’s nothing to compel you in the characters and story, the action scenes are far too uneven, the twists predictable and the plot generally unambitious, and the McGuffin is a much more obscure relic than in previous movies (though to their credit it’s not made up this time). It hasn’t got anything matching the tank sequence of Last Crusade or the bridge of Temple of Doom, or any number of classic scenes from Raiders of the Lost Ark. In fact, there’s nothing iconic about the movie, save for the fridge escape.
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is badly written, its action scenes lack any investment, it resorts to stereotypes for its South American natives, its humour is pretty bad (using a snake as a rope being the worst drawn-out routine, though the triple waterfall is a contender), and most unfortunately it doesn’t stand out enough. It’s not without its merits though. Spielberg’s been wise to keep Janusz Kaminski close, as his cinematography is pretty good, particularly in the Peruvian cave and the Lost City in the climax. Everything around the latter I love, as it both looks and feels wholly unique. I can’t say the same for the rest of he movie. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is indeed one of the low points of Spielberg’s career, especially as a revitalization of a successful franchise. But it’s not an abomination. And at the very least, he followed it up with a mostly good Indiana Jones movie, just not starring Indiana Jones.
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jordan_D_Bosch
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is badly written, its action scenes lack any investment, it resorts to stereotypes for its South American natives, its humour is pretty bad (using a snake as a rope being the worst drawn-out routine, though the triple waterfall is a contender), and most unfortunately it doesn’t stand out enough. It’s not without its merits though. Spielberg’s been wise to keep Janusz Kaminski close, as his cinematography is pretty good, particularly in the Peruvian cave and the Lost City in the climax. Everything around the latter I love, as it both looks and feels wholly unique. I can’t say the same for the rest of he movie. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is indeed one of the low points of Spielberg’s career, especially as a revitalization of a successful franchise. But it’s not an abomination. And at the very least, he followed it up with a mostly good Indiana Jones movie, just not starring Indiana Jones.
Follow me on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Jordan_D_Bosch
Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/jbosch/
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