I’ll start by saying that I never considered any of the previous Indiana Jones films to be on a par with the Shawshank Redemption. I only say this as many reviews of the newest instalment seem to have been expecting something like that, rather than the exceedingly enjoyable and memorable action films the predecessors actually were. They asked you to suspend your disbelief with the Ark melting faces and the Chalice bringing Sean Connery back from near-death. They immersed you in comedy and a world where an archaeologist rather than delicately excavate a site will instead choose to negotiate it’s traps (setting them off in the process) purely to get hold of a single item of interest.
They were about a man in a hat discovering legendary items which we were asked to believe were real and we believed because there was no better way to enjoy a Sunday evening than with that theme tune spurring on the man with the whip.
I say all this because that’s exactly what the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls was and it was glorious. I wasn’t left with the bad taste in my mouth I had when I saw The Phantom Menace, the taste of a much loved old classic having been modernised and idolised to such an extent that the magic had gone. The magic was here in bucket loads and it was glorious.
Indy and Marion, our two returning stars. Nothing has changed except for some time passing. Harrison Ford is in excellent condition for a man of his age and neither he nor Karen Allen appear to have forgotten how to play their characters, something that happens to a lot of actors who reprise old roles after a long period of time. In fact in those scenes where we get Harrison in pure silhouette you really can’t tell that anything has changed, Indy still has all the same mannerisms and delivers his reactions as we’ve become accustomed to. Harrison’s roles between The Last Crusade and this have been more measured and mature compared to Indy and his lack of grace under pressure yet it was all still there. The same applies to Karen Allen and rather surprisingly, the interplay seen all those years ago in Raiders of the Lost Ark is still there! It’s as if these two haven’t even been apart.
Shia LaBeouf is one of Hollywood’s newest golden boys and it was obvious before we even saw the film who he was going to be. Henry Jones Junior the Third (henceforth referred to as ‘Mutt’) is the model of his father, a testament to Shia’s acting skills that he seems to have successfully emulated Harrison’s young Indy in most ways, while adding his own little quirks. He also wasn’t afraid to throw himself into the true action it seems, having emulated this on young Indy as well. Mutt appears to be every bit his father’s son which explains why rumours are now circulating that Indy 5 will feature our newest Indiana with Harrison taking over the Sean Connery role.
We did unfortunately have to go through a few ‘love in’ moments reminiscent of the Last Crusade’s opening sequence with River Pheonix playing Young Indy. You know the one, where our reaction is supposed to be “Oooh, so that’s how he came up with his adventuring outfit” and “Oooh, there’s his first use of the whip!” whereas really we’re thinking “What a totally fumbled attempt at character development that was.”
So we had Jim Broadbent and Alan Dale in the first few minutes of the film getting all star struck by the amazing Professor Jones, yelling “Indy!” left right and centre just as the rest of the cast of characters have started using his real name. There were no end of “Oh my god…it’s…the hat!” moments from the cameramen, including the obligatory ‘Mutt picks up the hat and a new franchise is born’ moment at the end.
Despite these moments though, I still say the film was glorious. I’m a fan of the originals, I just got done watching them all over again and I could see them for exactly what they were, escapist popcorn films with fantastically twists at the end, never taking itself seriously and that was exactly what this instalment was. The fact that Spielberg totally refuses to embrace modern digital technology helped no end of course with cinematic style painstakingly lifted from it’s predecessors and all stunts done for real with a minimum of green screen moments.
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