Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Now it is time for the film I have been dreading to cover the most of the quadrilogy of Indiana Jones adventures and yes I am talking about Indy’s return to the big screen after a 19 year absence with 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (trailer). For new readers you can catch up on my posts for the original trilogy by clicking right here. When it originally released it was the only film in the franchise I vividly recall seeing in its entirety on release week. I recall walking out of that film irate because of a few gut-wrenching cornball scenes I will touch on later, and also because it featured Shia LaBeouf in one of the lead roles of the film fresh off his ultra-annoying performance in the first Transformers film. Needless to say I recall being furious anytime Shia’s mug appeared onscreen. This was 11 years ago however, so it was interesting revisiting this with a fresh set of eyes.

Before I continue bear with me for a quick sidebar. I specifically recall Crystal Skull being the last film playing in what was once the featured theater in my town throughout my childhood. The good ‘ol Columbia 4 was the place where I waited in long lines for tickets to see family blockbusters like Home Alone, D2: The Mighty Ducks, Beethoven and Major League II. Later in the 90s a 10-plex opened, and in 2007 a 15-plex debuted which was the catalyst for the Columbia 4 turning into second run $1 theater a couple months later. For the next several months I caught at least two movies a month there and would chance anything for a $1 but felt something was amiss when the only movie they had playing on all four screens for its last three weeks was Crystal Skull until they finally locked their doors. I miss $1 movies and I hope we get another second-run theater again someday.

Back on track, Crystal Skull opens with Indy (Harrison Ford) and his colleague Mac (Ray Winstone) being thrown out of a trunk by the Soviet KGB. Yes, Indy is no longer squaring off against Nazis in the 1930s, but now communists in 1957. The standard thrilling opening chase sequence transpires with Indy evading peril once again, but with the Russians constantly on his tail. Not all is well for Indy back home as his latest capers leads to his dismissal from his longtime professor job at the university, but he has a hot tip for this film’s self-titled Magoffin, a legendary Crystal Skull. This leads Indy to meeting up with one Mutt Williams (Shia LeBeouf) for more info on the Skull’s whereabouts, and that leads the pair to tracking down the kidnapped duo of Indy’s former pal, Dr. Oxley (John Hurt) and Mutt’s mom Marion (Karen Allen). The Russians are led by one Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett), who has some hinted psychological gifts early on, but that part of her persona is quickly brushed aside and she is essentially one of the weaker Indy antagonists. Mac is pretty amusing though with his constant double-crossing. Sadly, Sean Connery does not return to reprise his role as Indy Sr. as Connery stated in interviews at the time he was already a few years into his acting retirement and enjoying it too much to return to the screen, but there is a nice quick little tribute to him here.

After re-watching the original trilogy and now having 100% reverence for Marion’s role in Raiders, I was thrilled to see her return this time around. Her chemistry with Ford does not miss a beat and the two shine together whenever they share a scene after Marion’s introduction halfway into the film. Some of my original qualms was Ford obviously being too old to make a return to all the swashbuckling action the series is famous for as he was 65 when Crystal Skull was filmed. Ford must have had some bizarre combination of good makeup and training, because he comes off as barely spry enough to pull off most of the vintage Indy acrobatics and I was further stunned to see the interviews claim how he did most of his own stunts to boot. Being many years removed from the dreck of the original Transformers trilogy also helped re-watching this as I was able to give Shia’s performance a now un-biased perspective and I was legit surprised LeBeouf actually pulled off a pretty good outing as the greaser, Mutt Williams.

Most of the requisite chases and swashbuckling action scenes of Crystal Skull hold up surprisingly well. As a matter of fact nearly halfway through the film I jotted down in my notes in all caps ‘THIS IS ACTUALLY PRETTY GOOD SO FAR.’ There are still a few instances that are big asterisks where Crystal Skull does not tiptoe over the wrong side of the line of groan-inducing, hokey moments, it straight up jumps the shark on them. The first instance is a jeep chase that was going well until monkeys and vine swinging gets involved and it instantly took me right out of the moment. The second moment was when Indy and crew all survive a mammoth waterfall drop and instantly all of them walk right out of it without even a scratch.

I would be a fool at this point not to point out the elephant in the room in what is the most ridiculous jump the shark moment in cinema history….really….when Indiana…..I am not kidding….survives a nuclear blast on a testing ground by hiding in a lead-lined fridge and to rub salt in the wounds walking out of it WITHOUT EVEN A SCRATCH OR DROP OF BLOOD (SERIOUSLY, CLICK HERE TO RELIVE THIS ABSURDITY)!!! For that last instance it knocks the bonkers ball right out of the park and I can almost give Spielberg and Lucas a pass for being brazen enough to include it in here…almost.

My final gripe with Crystal Skull is how the final act plays out. I remembered enough bits and pieces of the original trilogy going into my first viewing of the fourth film to expect some supernatural material, and the inclusion of it is not what bothered me, but how it is pulled off is. When Spalko gets her just-deserts upon her inappropriate handling of the Crystal Skull, the way the CG-affair plays out is way too over the top to be taken seriously and get on the edge of my seat for like in previous films. This is also the first Indy film in the HD-era and Lucas already had the polarizing Star Wars prequels under his belt which featured the latest and greatest CG so it is baffling how silly the CG alien spectacle is executed.

On the bonus features disc of the BluRay set there is only one extra specific to Crystal Skull and that is Making of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It runs just under a half hour and it does a good job interviewing Lucas, Spielberg and Ford on how the fourth film came to be and how it is an ode to the 1950s alien invasion B-movies like how the original trilogy was an homage to 1930s serials. I checked out the last several bonus features on the extras disc that run 10-12 minutes each to round off all the bonus content I had not seen yet. These shorter extras cover the filming locations, the leading women of the films, and post production. They are all well done, but of them the only one I would recommend would be the extra containing excerpts from a panel interviewing the three lead women of the movies that looked like it was shot shortly after The Last Crusade. The actresses are interviewed in the other bonuses, but it is nice to see them shine on their own here and give more insight and anecdotes than the other interviews.

For those interested in one more extra not contained on the set, the Cinemassacre crew did another recent video debating on whether Temple of Doom or Crystal Skull is the worst Indiana Jones film you can check out by clicking here. If it was not for these guys making these videos in the last few weeks it would have taken me several months to get around to covering the last two Indy films so kudos to them for driving me to get to them sooner than later. As far as which of those two films do I rank as the inferior Jones caper, I would have to rank Temple of Doom at the bottom.

As I detailed in my entry for Temple of Doom, I had a lot of beef with it and the only parts I cared for were the opening sequence and the final mine-cart and rope-bridge scenes which only tallied up to about a quarter of the film. For Crystal Skull however my opinion of it turned a complete 180. Yes, I detailed four major gripes above with the film, but those are my only noteworthy problems and other aspects of the fourth film aged better than I could have imagined and I was on board for around two-thirds of the film! I still would rank it as only my third favorite of the series behind Raiders and Last Crusade being my standout favorite, but Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will likely be the only movie in the history of this blog that I had a positive 180 change of opinion on.

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

3
12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown
21 Jump Street
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: Civil War
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Christmas Eve
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
The Condemned 2
Countdown
Creed
Deck the Halls
Die Hard
Dredd
The Eliminators
The Equalizer
Dirty Work
Faster
Fast and Furious I-VIII
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Gravity
Guardians of the Galaxy
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
Indiana Jones 1-4
Ink
The Interrogation
Interstellar
Jobs
Joy Ride 1-3
Man of Steel
Man on the Moon
Marine 3-6
Metallica: Some Kind of Monster
Mortal Kombat
National Treasure
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
The Replacements
Reservoir Dogs
Rocky I-VII
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
San Andreas
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Shoot em Up
Skyscraper
Small Town Santa
Steve Jobs
Source Code
Star Trek I-XIII
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
UHF
Veronica Mars
Vision Quest
The War
Wild
Wonder Woman
The Wrestler (2008)
X-Men: Days of Future Past