Before I begin this review let me set the table. I know if many of you are regular readers of Blue Sky Disney then you know I have a special love of Indiana Jones. It starts with the fact that "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is my favorite film.
But the story behind that is a little deeper as well...
As a child I can remember watching the local PBS affiliate on weekends, sundays actually. There was a show on there called "Super Serial Showcase" and it introduced me to the world of low budget serials from the 30's and 40's... it offered an action-packed world populated by the innocent view of good versus evil. A universe where you could clearly see where each side stood. A place where you always knew who to root for. No matter if it was my favorite "Spy Smasher" or something like "Zorro's Fighting Brigade" or "The Phantom Empire"... I loved these shorts for the innocence they provided and action that they threw at me. I kept asking the question: "Why doesn't someone make a movie like this?".
On a quite night in my local theater I attended an advance screening of a new film called "Raiders of the Lost Ark"... I knew nothing about it from the commercials I had seen. I only knew it was from the guy that did "Star Wars" and the other guy that did "Jaws". And so I set down with a friend in the theater and waited to see what this new film was about. As the movie began and the plot unwound I sat with my mouth agape...
"Oh, my god! It's as if they went into my head and pulled out these ideas and my thoughts from earlier!" I had an out of body experience... the only one I've ever had watching a film. Not even "Star Wars" did that for me. When the film ended I sat in my seat and watched all the credits(The first time I had ever done that). It took the employees asking me to leave for me to realize the lights had came up. I went home that night giddy...
You see, I was in love.
Indiana Jones was my idol. My hero. He was a man's man, yet he was vulnerable unlike a suave character like James Bond. Indy was approachable and he was more important for me, authentic. I've seen every film since and although they are nowhere near as good as the original, I love them. I love Harrison Ford for the portrayal of this character, I love Spielberg for directing this homage to those old serials I had become familiar with and I love George Lucas for the creation of this wondrous adventurer.
While I didn't care much for the "Young Indiana Jones Chronicles", I've always been on the lookout for another film. Hoping over these nineteen years that somehow Lucas, Spielberg and Ford could somehow find a way to reach back and pull Indy into my world again. And now, it's here... after all those years the Man with the Hat is back.
What did I think of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull"?
Sigh...
I Didn't love it... I didn't hate it as well. But after nineteen years I was expecting that George Lucas and Steven Spielberg would have come up with something a little more. Now, there are those that had unrealistic expectations of this film. I don't think I was one of them. All I was hoping was that it would be as good as "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade", which was the weakest in the series to me. If it had been that good I would have been content, I would have been happy. But as I sat there watching the film I had an eerie feeling...
I wasn't watching an Indiana Jones film. I was watching a film that had been inspired by an Indiana Jones film. It kind of felt like "The Mummy". Although I liked that film better than this one. It seemed like one of many films I've seen people try to make over the last two decades that had been influenced by "Raiders of the Lost Ark".
Harrison Ford is back and there are shades of Indy in his performance, but it just didn't feel right. I know they were trying to portray him as being older, it was the 50's after all. It was supposed to be like he was becoming his own father where he was a little more hesitant at doing things, a little more timid... but it didn't work. For me at least.
I know Spielberg said that Cate Blanchett's portrayal of Irina Spalko was his favorite of all the villains in the series, but every time she was on the screen I just kept seeing a live-action version of Natasha from "The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle".
The Script by David Koepp seemed like something I'd see in a more feeble attempt at mimicking this series story, not the Indy of old. I tend to look at this film as separate and apart from the series. Kind of like what would happen if we looked into the future and imagined what Indy would be... I don't think of this as a part of that series. I don't really look at this as part four in the line of films.
There was plenty of action, but unlike the rest of the Indy films("Raiders" in particular), I never felt for a moment that Indiana Jones was in any real peril. I felt like it was a pedestrian story that went from A to B to C... and so on. I know that Indy would survive in the others, but there was a palpable sense that he might not make it.
I'm not going to tell anyone to not go see this film. Everyone will go see this no matter what anyone tells you. It's essentially critic-proof. At least for a week or so... But don't go in expecting to see the Indiana Jones that you remember from the 80's... this film feels like they could have just changed Indiana Jones to some other name and changed Marion's character to some other heroine and given the film a new title. It would have been another attempt by a film maker to capture the spirit of Indiana Jones. It may have succeeded in doing that, but it failed to also capture his soul. That's a big problem I have with it...
It's soulless.
There are a lot of action scenes that have the Spielberg touch, but most of it feels like another action director could have done this. And that shouldn't be happening in a Steven Spielberg film. He's been on his "A-Game" for over a decade now. The last real misfire he had was "Hook".
Now I don't hate it as I said. My best friend HATES it. He feels that Lucas and Spielberg(especially him) have destroyed a character he loved in just over two hours. THX-1388, remember him and his "Star Wars Must Die" guest column on Blue Sky Disney? Well he hated it. I expected him to hate it, but not anyone else. Almost all my friends feel this way.
When the lights came up I walked out the theater and realized that Indiana Jones was over for me. That maybe, they had tried to make this film a decade too late with the wrong writer and wrong perspective and maybe I've seen the last film to feature the Man in the Hat. There won't be anymore Indy films because there just shouldn't be anymore... anymore. I closed the door on a piece of my childhood after that screening. I didn't want to, but I did.
Perhaps it was inevitable. Perhaps it was to be expected...
I didn't want to feel this way. Most of you have known I was waiting for this more than any other film. I still don't feel my expectations were that high. But I did expect to see an "Indiana Jones film"...
I wound up watching a pale reflection of that movie, a nod to a series of films. But the character I saw wasn't what I was expecting or wanting. It may be appropriate that the film takes place in the late 50's which also happens to be the time when serials started to disappear because the new medium of television was taking it's place and competing with films at the theaters. To end a series that was influenced by those serials around the same time they ended may provide a little melancholy to the situation...
It wasn't the experience I wanted, but it was the feeling I got. Maybe, unbeknownst to myself... it was the feeling I needed.
