With the Lucas, Spielberg and Ford gang finally together again, we now have our fourth and final(?) installment of Harrison Ford as "Indiana Jones". The film starts off with a bang, showing Indy (Henry Jones, Jr, as revealed in "The Last Crusade") in trouble yet again. Harrison displays Indy as aged right off the bat but he's playing possum for the audience as, soon enough, the whip is cracking, punches are being thrown and your childhood starts rushing back as you hum along to the action, "Da d-da-daaaa! Da da daaaaa"!
It's 1957 and the U.S. is in the heat of the Cold War (yes, I know what I said) and the adventure opens up in the infamous "Area 51", so you know things are going to get spooky and there's got to be yet another mystical artifact involved just like "Ark", "Doom" and "The Last Crusade". Clearly, from the title, it's a crystal skull (with a rich history that is slowly revealed throughout the entire film) and it's up to Indiana Jones to return it to it's proper Mayan home and keep it out of the hands of the Nazi's, oops, I mean Commies. The action is plentiful, just like the 1st and 3rd installments with fast moving vehicles, plenty of fist fights, bullets flying and nick of time escapes. There's also a sword fight thrown in for good measure. A sword fight where each contestant is on the back of a truck going fifty miles an hour through the jungle and one of them is a psychic powered communist and the other is a 50's greaser. I wouldn't type it if I didn't see it for myself, but there it was, and it was awesome. The sequences are spaced between the first and third act, leaving the center chunk of the movie for us to get to know the characters a little more.
Shia La Beouf is a one trick pony as the fast-talking smart mouth kid (as we saw in "Transformers" and "Constantine") but I actually enjoyed his role in this film. He proved his action chops in the robot movie and he continues that here, taking some good punches and showing us his best Tarzan impression. His name in the film, "Mutt", is a cute little take on the fact that "Indiana" was Henry Jones, Jr's dog when he was a kid and where our hero took his name. The script teases us about "Mutt's" ability of being the next "Indiana" but overall, it also shows us that Harrison Ford's still got it in spades. We also see Marion Ravenwood return, long considered Indiana's one true love by the series' fanbase. She shows up out of nowhere and Indiana's reaction to seeing her again is absolutely priceless, only Harrison Ford could put sixteen seperate emotions into one and a half seconds.
Unfortunately, I can't go too deeply into the plot if you haven't seen the film and don't want spoilers. All I can say that Harrison Ford may be a good "Han Solo" but he's a great "Indiana Jones", his presence commands your attention and watching this adventure is like comfort food for our nostalgic little brains. A whole new trilogy would be more than welcome.
5 comments:
totally can't wait to see this
unfortunately in comparison with the other 3 this movie rated 3rd...but then again its just behind raiders and last crusade and of course temple of doom is still all alone in the basement suite.
i give it an 8/10. but for anyone who somehow missed out on the first 3 (not necessarily #2) the many pastiches to the them will take away from the overall experience.
I highly recommend watching the first three before seeing part four. But I agree you can skip Temple of Doom, it was very lackluster.
heres the formula for good indy movies:
western myth(best as a religious aritfact) + evil superpower(that must be stopped) = good movie
doom = little known myth + small threat
The Ark and the Holy Grail aren't Western myths, though. They're worldwide myths. Like Jesus' silver tongue and his taming of the mystical 'land cow'.
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