The Turning Gate

Some things best left alone

On the disappointing return of Indiana Jones

Opening day for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in Korea.

It's my considered opinion that Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade comprise one of the greatest action/adventure trilogies of all time.

Going into Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I had my doubts. Shia LaBeouf irritates the piss out of me, Ford hasn't done much to rave about in recent years, and consider the horrors Lucas wrought by revisiting Star Wars.

Spoilers ahead.

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull opens with a CGI prairie dog. A CGI frakking prairie dog! What the frak is that?!

The plot, as it unfolds, blends lore from the Roswell conspiracy with tales of El Dorado, the conquistadors' fabled lost city of gold. It's 1957, and, shortly beyond the CGI prairie dog, we catch up with an age-worn Indiana Jones, kidnapped by KGB agents bent upon achieving world domination via psychic supremacy. The key to this supremacy, of course, is the crystal skull - the skull of the Roswell alien and the key to unlocking El Dorado, the city having been built by the aliens. The skull is more than a key, however; it also possesses unusual magnetic properties, and acts as a psychic booster to the human mind.

Cate Blanchett, as the leader of the KGB outfit and the film's primary nemesis, turns in her most lackluster role in years. Luckily for Cate, she's not alone here. Lucas seems to have a knack for drawing the worst from his actors (see McGregor, Neeson, Portman and others in Star Wars as evidence). Shia LaBeouf plays the same character he plays in every film. John Hurt, an actor I typically adore, fails as comedic relief and appears to be little more than a poor plot device. Even Ford, reprising a role he made legendary in his youth, fails to capture the flame he once ignited.

Plot devices throughout the film are half-assed. The skull's magnetism is activated only when convenient to the story, and with variable potency. When Indy and the KGB enter the government storage facility in search of the skull - the very same facility seen at the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark we soon discover - it's magnetic enough to draw gunpowder through the air in a cloud, making its container pretty easy to locate. That same uncanny magnetism doesn't seem to interfere with any of the other thousands of artifacts in storage, though. Nor does it have much impact on the KGB soldiers, their guns, knives, swords, ammunition (chock full of the very same gunpowder that was just swooping through the air as a cloud, and from quite a distance!), etc. Throughout the film, the magnetism only appears when it's useful, and not at all otherwise. In the car chase, for example, I would have expected the skull to stick mightily to the vehicles, but it never does.

More half-assed plot devices include Cate Blanchett's psychic powers, Indiana Jones' motivation for undertaking his latest quest, John Hurt's relevance to the plot, the El Dorado natives, and the token reappearance of Marian Ravenwood and her revelation that Shia LaBeouf is Indy's son. Poorly played, all. And who the hell are those guys that attack Indy and the kid in the graveyard? Seriously, what the hell was that?

Like Star Wars Episodes I, II and III, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is overly reliant on CGI. The car chase suffers tremendously because of it. At several points during this overlong sequence, I was tempted to leave the theater. Shia LaBeouf straddled between two cars whilst sword-fighting was awful; Shia LaBeouf and the greaser monkeys in the Tarzan sequence was even worse. Indy and crew surviving three tumbles over large, deadly waterfalls with nary a scratch iced the cake. Only my love of the first three films stayed me in my seat.

Ultimately, the CGI only serves to hurt the film, lessening the dramatic impact of the action sequences. The original films were spectacular because the stunts were real. They were over-the-top, but the feats were physical, substantial. By comparison, the sequences in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull seem even phony, and entirely watered down.

I won't divulge the film's ending, except to say the conclusion is too heavily reminiscent of the Nazi face melting from Raiders of the Lost Ark, making me feel as if I've seen it before. The defeat of the KGB is anti-climactic and a poor imitation of that famous scene, but nonetheless recalls it.

Throughout his many adventures, I would imagine Indiana Jones, the character, probably would have learned that some things are best left untampered with. Lucas, Spielberg and Ford, however, have apparently not learned this lesson. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is worse than a let-down. It's a travesty.

Send this article to a friend »

« Next Article | ... ... | Previous Article »