Movies Daily by Zach Cannon

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is fun. I think it would be impossible for any Lucas-Spielberg-Ford collaboration not to be at least that much. It picks up 19 years after the last one. Since we last saw him, Indy has fought in World War II (and became Colonel Jones in the process), operated as a spy, and helped the U.S government clean up some kind of crash in Roswell.

It’s because of that last job that a bunch of Russians kidnap Dr. Jones and take him to an enormous familiar-looking warehouse in New Mexico called Hangar 51. They’re looking for a boxed-up corpse found at the crash site in Roswell. Leading the Russians is Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett), a psychic Commie interested in a whole new kind of psychological warfare.

The whole affair brings some G-Men down on Indy and he loses his job as a professor. He’s just about to leave town when Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf, who is plenty cool because he dresses like Marlon Brando from The Wild Ones and says shit. Twice.) comes to him looking for help. Some guy nicknamed The Ox (John Hurt) the two know is lost in South America and Mutt’s mother has been kidnapped while looking for her.

His mother’s name: Marion Williams. Indy says he doesn’t know her, and if you’ve never heard of Indiana Jones before, you might not know who she is either. But, for everyone else, we all know Marion Williams can only be Marion Ravenwood, former love interest of Indy from Raiders of the Lost Ark. As for who the father of Mutt is, I’ll try not to spoil it, but this is a Spielberg film, and one of his trademarks is the use of bad or absent fathers and, well, Indy ran out on Marion when they were supposed to get married years ago….

Figure it out yet? Of course you have, it’s obvious, and so is so much of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Maybe I’m biased because I’ve watched a few too many late-night specials on the History Channel so I know a bit about the real crystal skulls, but even if you’re completely new to the things, it’s not hard to figure out the conclusion and how they fit into South American history in the movie.

And even if you do figure it out yourself, at least the movie should be fun to see how Indy and Co. will solve the mystery and save the world this time. But Spielberg, Lucas and screenwriter David Koepp first set up a so-so plot (Indy and Mutt go to South America to find The Ox and Marion and return a crystal skull to the fabled City of Gold, a.k.a El Dorado) that’s bogged down by silly asides (expressive gophers, swinging monkeys, Indy surviving a nuclear bomb test inside a projectile lead refrigerator) and an ultimate lack of much danger.

There is no real villain in the movie, just the predictable double-crosser and a would-have-been-cool-if-they-didn’t-humanize-her Irina. Worse, there’s no mystery Indy can’t solve because they’re all already solved for him. Rather than uncovering the location of lost cities or overcoming strange curses, Indy easily deciphers — and then he and Mutt explain incessantly — the mad ramblings of Hurt’s Ox, whose own time searching for the Crystal Skulls has left him insane. Then he takes down the Russians and everyone lives happily ever after.

There are a few things that make the movie worthwhile though and the man in the fedora is right on top of the list. Ford may be 65, but he’s still spry and he still sweats humor and charisma. LaBeouf proves further that he has some chops and is well on his way to becoming the next Tom Hank/Harrison Ford/Insert Hollywood-everyman-type here. He and Ford have excellent chemistry and their rapport is energetic and the two of them together might be reason enough to have more Indiana Jones movies. Some sequences, like the long three-car chase/fight through the jungle, and Indy and Mutt battling graveyard ninjas, are exciting, though somewhat hampered down by subpar CGI. Go to the theater to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull for any of these reasons, but don’t expect to find a real treasure.

Grade: B

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