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10/6/2008
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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
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To say this film was widely anticipated would be like saying that the sky is blue. The original Indiana Jones trilogy holds a strong place in many peoples hearts including my own. It is for this reason that the new film is a disappointment. Perhaps expectations were too high in this new digital era where more is possible. Have you perhaps come to the definitive film where digital effects are not the way to go? For that is the sole place where the problem lies within this film. Were this film made in the 1980's like the others then the storyline would have worked better as it would seem less already done and more original. Ah enough with the initial moan.
The good parts are plain to see. What worked in the original trilogy was how Indiana Jones defined the period it depicted on the screen as it took on the 1930's and in particular the nazis. The Crystal Skull moves us forward in time to the 1950s and the Cold War period. Like the old films the period is depicted perfectly with an eclectic mix of American society, nuclear testing and bad Russian accents. Along with this Harrison Ford does a good job donning the fedora again, sure he is older now but he still plays the character well if not with a little less seriousness. Shia LeBeouf does a good job as his sidekick in the film... well as good as the script will allow him anyway. His character has personality and is relatively well rounded allowing us to understand him. Karen Allen also makes a strong return as Indy's love interest. As far as villains go Cate Blanchett is a harrowing Russian bad gal and Ray Winstone does a decent job as the treasure hungry Mac.
Where the films falls down as was touched on before is not with the character, locations or time period (although I do miss the Nazis) but with the special effects. The old films had a certain gritty realism about them as what was shown had to be real to be on the screen. This has been sacrificed now for poor CG. CG is not bad when its done well but here it is noticable and ugly. It also leads to portions of the film which are just terrible, the George of the Jungle moment should definitely be cited here, also there are too many badly done desert creatures and the ants are crap. What really hurts most though is the UFO storyline. The religious images of the original trilogy worked a lot better than some made up twaddle that seems to make it live in the same world as the AVP films. Where the film works is in how its character react to eachother and work together. The performances and dialogue are as good as ever but the film is let down by the storyline which could also be evidenced by their ten year search for a good screenplay. With other adventurer films like the Mummy having used CGI heavily for the last ten years it feels more like a copy of those films than an Indiana Jones sequel and so it leaves a sour taste in the mouth.
Review by Jonathan Little
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