Sunday, May 25, 2008
A+E, Movies

Tomb raider

Latest ‘Indiana Jones’ plunders moments from earlier, better entries

Courtesy of Paramount Pictures
Harrison Ford in “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”

“INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL”
Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Rated PG-13
Wide release

BY KEVIN FOREST MOREAU

When “Raiders of the Lost Ark” debuted in 1981, part of its adrenaline-charged appeal came from the fact that it was playing in its own distinct corner of the action-movie sandbox; only the “Star Wars” sequel “The Empire Strikes Back,” released the previous year (and also starring Harrison Ford), approximated its kinetic, never-a-dull-moment aesthetic. A tip of the rumpled fedora to the cheaply made cliffhanger serials of the ’30s and ’40s, “Raiders” relied on roller-coaster thrills, stunts, exotic locales and expertly frantic editing to create a breakneck perpetual-motion joyride.

But none of it would have worked without the serviceable pulp-serial plot at its center, which served as a springboard for the action. That lesson was lost, oddly enough, on producer George Lucas and director Steven Spielberg, who strung together a series of overenthusiastic “Top this!” set pieces for 1984’s disjointed and bizarre “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” without similar attention to the story linking them together. And after the more accessible and enjoyable “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” it’s a lesson lost once again in “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” the fourth film to chronicle the adventures of Ford’s grizzled archaeologist.

There’s a plot at the center of “Crystal Skull,” to be sure, but instead of following the organic action-adventure template of “Raiders” and “Last Crusade,” it feels stitched together from a couple of vastly different script ideas. The story, such as it is, involves the popular urban legend about UFOs in Roswell, N.M., and a bit of science fantasy that borrows from “Stargate” and Erich von Däniken’s “Chariots of the Gods?” Oh, and don’t forget the Russians, who step in for the Nazis of the series’ first and third installments.

These Russians, however, are more cartoonish in their villainy, as opposed to the faceless Communist threat of the Cold War, which is awkwardly shoehorned into the proceedings and eventually abandoned. After the film’s first big action sequence, Ford’s rugged but aging Jones stumbles into what appears to be an idyllic suburban enclave populated with cardboard cutouts. Turns out it’s the site of a nuclear bomb test, and after a narrow escape (one of the movie’s few ingenious moves) Jones finds himself grilled by a couple of menacing FBI agents who suspect him of collusion with the bad guys.

That angle is soon discarded, and one wonders about the film that might have been had Spielberg and Lucas followed up on the paranoia-at-home theme. Soon enough, he’s jetting to Peru with a self-conscious greaser named Mutt (Shia LaBeouf), who rides onto the screen, for no discernable reason, in an unabashed homage to Marlon Brando in “The Wild One.”

Mutt (whose relationship to Indy is one of the most poorly kept secrets of the summer) brings news of a colleague of Jones’ (John Hurt) who’s disappeared—something having to do with a crystal skull—and before long, the pair are dodging Peruvian natives and in the clutches of the Russians, led by a purring Irina Spalko, played to the campy hilt by Cate Blanchett, who irretrievably knocks the film off its pulp-magazine/’50s alien horror-movie axis and plunges it into an unintentional B-movie, rather than a tribute to the genre.

“Crystal Skull” doesn’t lack for stimulating action scenes (including a well-executed race through the jungle) and humorous moments, although both prove lighter than one expects, and neither are enough to arrest the movie’s nostalgia for the series’ earlier moments (despite her endearing presence, Karen Allen, reprising her “Raiders” role as Indy’s long-lost love Marion Ravenwood, ultimately adds very little). By the time the disappointingly CGI-heavy climax (which also borrows from “Raiders”) rolls around, “Crystal Skull” feels less like a worthy successor to “Raiders” and “Last Crusade” and more like a “Be Kind Rewind”-style remake of better movies. 2.5 STARS