Harrison Ford creaks through another installment in the INDIANA JONES saga. Question is, did we really need another one?

When last we left our Intrepid Adventurer, he was riding into the freakin’ sunset, along with an elderly Sean Connery. Great end to a great trilogy, the Lucas/Spielberg magic was humming on all cylinders, and Harrison Ford went out a hero to millions of kids here and abroad. (Okay, maybe not in countries where he actually robbed graves, but that’s a minor quibble.)

Fast-forward twenty years…

Harrison Ford had a hell of a streak running there, right up to the point he became a parody of himself in that delightful stinker of a film, Six Days and Seven Nights. The fact that Anne Heche came out just before the film did as an inveterate carpet muncher did help the box office either. Then came a string of disappointments (K-19, What Lies Beneath, Hollywood Homicide, Water to Wine, and that vile bit of business known as Hollywood Homicide.) It was only the strength of the man’s name as a box office force to be reckoned with that kept him employed through the new millennium.

Needless to say, Ford needed a hit. Badly.

For that matter, so did Steven Spielberg. Used to mega-hits such as the Indiana Jones trilogy, ET the Extra-Terrestrial, Jaws, and dozens other, his box-office mojo kinda went south with AI, Evolution, Catch Me if You Can, The Terminal, and some others he was either producer or executive producer on.

Then, there’s George Lucas, who managed to single-handedly destroy his own Star Wars franchise with that abortive trilogy of prequels that were a cross between Götterdämmerung and High School Musical. Only a little less butch.

So we’ve got three guys whose careers were in a tailspin, looking to rejuvinate their Hollywood lustre. So they do what every good production team does… does back to what they know best.

The original Indiana Jones pictures were take-offs on the Saturday Mantinee movies of the 1930’s and 40’s, those cliffhanger serials that kept kids butts glued in the chairs week after week. Spielberg and Lucas took those juvenile potboilers and made themselves a pile of cash selling Raiders of the Lost Ark to kids (and grownups!) who had never seen that sort of movie before. With monster effects and a budget that was more than the budget of all the old Republic serials put together, the team had, what Spielberg calls, "lightning in a bottle." The stuck to the formula for the next two installments, and walked away very, very rich.

Which explains why they decided on this movie to go in another direction.

First off, let’s talk about the obvious problem: Harrison Ford is too old to be playing Indiana Jones. The man is 62 years old, fer God’s sake! Instead of looking like the "dashing adventurer," he looks like someone’s grandpa trying to find his way to the Ol’ Country Buffet. While Ford may very well be fit enough to do some of the stunts required in the film, he’s 62 years old! Most men his age are looking forward to early retirement and sitting on an inflatable doughnut.

Another issue was the Lucas/Spielberg team. After watching the "making of" portion of the DVD, it was a wonder the film even got made, what with Lucas wanting this and Lucas wanting that, scripts that weren’t what the filmakers wanted, etc. etc. etc.

One more issue that bugged the crap out of me was the inclusion of pop-tart Shia LaBeouf as the hook to bring in the kiddies. LaBeouf if you’ll recall has such masterworks under his belt as Dumb and Dumberer: When Harry Met Lloyd, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, Constantine, and that all-time favorite, Transformers. The kid is obnoxious in this one, doing his best Marlon Brando Wild Bunch impersonation – and failing. Worse, he gets into these little scenes-within-scenes where he putzes around with his hair like a cut-rate Fonzie.

Enough about that.

What’s the story about?

It’s 1950-something, and a bunch of Russian Commies led by a disturbingly sexy Cate Blanchett have taken Jones hostage so they can break into a top secret military base and steal something Jones found back in 1947.

Okay, so now, I’m pegging my BS meter, and we’re barely five minutes into the show. I mean, WTF? A bunch of yahoos show up at the airport sporting Russian uniforms and borscht-thick accents, in the 50’s, and nobody calls the FBI? Also, they break into the base by shooting the guards. WTF?? Didn’t anybody hear the gunshots out there in the desert?

Putting that aside, Jones figures out a way to find what they’re looking for, escapes, and finds himself in a nice quiet suburban neighborhood. In the middle of the freakin’ desert. He figures something’s up when he sees a bunch of mannequins sitting in front of a TV watching Howdy Doody. I won’t go into the rest of it for those of you who haven’t see this flick, but let’s just say Lucas and Spielberg are asking us to suspend a metric ton of belief.

As usual, the effects are fantastic (but not as "WOW!" inspiring as they were back in the 80’s, probably due to our super-saturation of CGI effects on everything from movies to cat food commercials,) the settings are lush, and some of the comedy bits do actually work – sometimes. And, Ford does manage to make quips about his age, just in case we forgot he’s 62 years old.

A sweet surprise was Karen Allen showing up as Indy’s love interest Marion, LaBeouf’s mother. She was apparently stood up at the altar by Indy lo those many years ago, but like every wench female I’ve ever known, went on with her life and got married to someone else. (Not that I’m bitter or anything…)

One of the problems with movie sequels made twenty years later is the number of main characters who have died off, and you have to figure out a way to write them in/out of the script. Sean Connery is still very much alive but enjoying retirement: solution? Kill off his character. Denholm Elliott assumed room temperature back in 1992. Solution? Put his picture up in the office (and his statue out on the campus lawn.) John Rhys-Davies ("Sallah") is still very much alive, but wasn’t available for the production: solution? Don’t even bother bringing him up!

Now on the DVD, Spielberg said they were going away from the cliffhanger formula and going for a more "B" movie experience, "B" as in I was a Teenage Frankenstein, Monster from the Ocean Floor, and The Tingler, all of which had budgets like your kids’ allowance. Which I guess was to explain away the goofy effects, LaBeouf having a sword fight with Blanchett while they were both on moving cars, and the climax featuring plastic alien skeletons.

Yes that’s right, plastic alien skeletons.

Overall, I liked the movie, but not the like-like I had for the original trilogy. It was that nostalgic like, the kind you get at a family reunion, finding out what everyone’s been up to these last twenty years, like that Return to Gilligan’s Island show they did in the 80s. But I hope they’ll stop at this last one, because I’d hate to remember Harrison Ford wielding a walker instead of a whip.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

Tags: Cate Blanchett, George Lucas, Harrison ford, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Karen Allen, plastic alien skeletons, Shia LaBeouf, Steven Spielberg

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 19th, 2008 at 5:30 am and is filed under Movies. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.