Indy is Back and His Movie is Good

First off, let me start by saying that I did spend some time looking at the other reviews of the new Indiana Jones movie. I had heard that there was bad buzz surrounding the movie coming out of the Cannes Film Festival. I was shocked when I read some of the reviews. It seemed like people had forgotten what these movies were supposed to be about.

The one review that just leapt out to me was the criticism that Speilberg brought supernatural elements into the movie. I wanted to reach through the computer and smack this reviewer. Did she forget what happened in the other three movies? Had she even seen them? Did she forget that the magical ark released the "power of God" to melt all of the Nazis in the first film? What about the magical stones in the second one? Did she just ignore the magical cup that bestowed eternal life in the third? ALL of the Indiana Jones movies had supernatural elements in them.

Indiana Jones is never meant to be real. It is not meant to really break new ground. It is supposed to be an homage to the serial movies of the 40s and 50s, although, these movies really are what those movies could only aspire to be. Indiana Jones is supposed to be chasing some obscure artifact all over the world, fighting bad guys and making unbelievable escapes and stunts in the process.

As such, "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" delivers and it delivers well. This is a very worthy addition to the series. The movie accomplishes everything it sets out to do, and it does it in style, good-humor and edge-of-your-seat adventure.

Harrison Ford is back the title role and rather than trying to pretend he is still a young man, acknowledges that everything he does is harder now. He acknowledges being older. He makes more mistakes. Those dazzling stunts are a little more difficult now.

This time he is fighting communists rather than Nazis. The head of the commies is an amazing Cate Blanchette in a severe bobbed black wig and an accent that twists and turns around the vowels and consonants like Boris from the Bullwinkle cartoons. She is also a master fighter and fencer.

We are also introduced to a new character, named Mutt Williams, played by the young actor Shia Lebouf, trying to channel a young Marlon Brando on his motorcycle. He combs his hair constantly, but isn't an idiot teenager. He manages to hold his own against Indy himself and come up with some great solutions to problems they face all on his own. The performance is very good and once again profess that Shia is a very talented young man. Hopefully he can start staying out of trouble and continue to make something out of himself.

Indy's love interest from "Raiders," Marion Ravenwood, shows up again. She is once again portrayed by Karen Allen who somehow manages to still look good despite the years, just as Harrison Ford still manages to look good despite his own.

They are after the titular "Crystal Skull" in this movie. Well, to be fair, they kind of already have the skull in the beginning, but the key to the movie is that they need to bring the skull back to where it belongs so that more cool special effects can happen. The skull, an elongated, bulky, creepy-looking thing, can bring about great power. Exactly what that power is, is not really defined. At one point a character asks to know "everything" and then is seemingly given that knowledge. What happens then I will leave to you to find out.

If I had one quibble about the movie it would be the now expected scenes involving huge numbers of potentially dangerous animals. In the first movie it was a huge amount of snakes. In the second movie it was thousands upon thousands of bugs. In the third movie, there were hundreds and hundreds of rats. In this movie, they are flesh-eating ants.

Here is the thing about that, though. I remember seeing making-of specials after the first movie and found that most of the snakes in those scenes were the real thing. I have no idea how many of the insects in the second were real, but I bet a bunch were. There were a lot of very real rats dumped on Harrison and Sean Connery in the third. Well, you can't have Harrison Ford standing in a pile of billions of flesh-eating ants. So, the ants are computer-generated. I guess this is OK, but it does seem to lose something a bit for me.

None of the Indiana Jones movies, at least for me, have managed to capture the exact lightning in a bottle that "Raiders of the Lost Ark" did. That movie kind of came out of nowhere, with no expectations, and blew away an entire generation of young movie-goers. None of the subsequent sequels, despite all being very well-made movies, have matched that first experience. This one is the same way, although it is still a very exciting ride.

There is a stunt involving not one, not two, but three very large waterfalls. There are exciting sword fights and chase scenes. There are dazzling stunts, great fights and thrills galore. All of it more than makes up for any of the minor faults that may occur along the way.

Still, having seen this, I do hope that Indy is, once and for all, retired. His stories seem to have run out now and I think it would be a good time for him to fade into the sunset. It's been a helluva fun ride, but it's time to rest now, Indy. Good job.