The latest Indiana Jones adventure represents the Moonraker phase in the franchise's history...the point where everyone just said the hell with reality and succumbed to their giddiest and most absurd storytelling impulses.
Of course Indiana Jones never had much to do with recognizable reality anyway...it was always about school boy swashbuckling fantasies and crazy set pieces and finding out how much Kate Capshaw a human being could stand before they ripped all the hair from their skulls and started running around in circles making donkey noises.
Still, the earlier Indy Jones movies at least paid lip service to laws of the universe. They were not superhero movies...Indy Jones was not some kind of invulnerable mega-man but rather a foolhardy-but-resourceful fellow who tended to blunder and stumble and get the shit kicked out of him, and became all the more endearing for it.
The new Indy Jones has thrown all that semi-plausibility out the window in favor of what creator George Lucas quaintly terms "wackiness." And what exactly does George consider wacky? Guys surviving atom bombs by hiding inside refrigerators. Stalinist dominatrices with outrageous accents. Motorcycle chases through university libraries. Shia LaBeouf's hair.
Some may be inspired to use terms other than "wacky" when describing the common-sense-defying antics unleashed in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. "Idiotic" may leap to mind. Also "mind-numbingly dumb" and "astonishingly stupid." All accurate characterizations. And yet, like the films of that silly middle period of the James Bond franchise, the Live and Let Die-Spy Who Loved Me-Moonraker phase, the new Indy Jones manages somehow to survive its own unabashed absurdity.
In fact, I think it does more than survive...it almost triumphs.
There are two factors in this movie's favor: One, the tremendous good feeling the audience has for the character of Indiana Jones; and two, Steven Spielberg.
This is where Indy Jones differs from the James Bond franchise: Where James Bond always remained flippantly above the action, Jones stays undeniably and endearingly a part of it. Harrison Ford was never the kind of actor who could pull off ironic detachment...even when he's being sarcastic he remains heroically straight. A hip actor might've been inspired to wink at the nonsense in the earlier Indy Jones movies and even more at the super-nonsense in this newest one, but not Ford...he plays it gruffly, lovably for real. That's why audiences feel such a fondness for this character (and for Han Solo, who was always more-liked than that douchebag Luke Skywalker). And that fondness stays alive no matter what "wackiness" George Lucas is determined to hit us with.
Lucas, for whatever reason, has been intent on trashing his own legacy. He destroyed the magic of Star Wars with his moronic biological explanations for the Force and his offensively dumb characters like Jar Jar Binks...and he nearly does the same with Indy Jones by stretching toward cartoonish insanity. But our abiding love for Indy Jones as played by Harrison Ford keeps us involved despite the outlandishness. We don't accept what we're seeing - how can anyone accept a man in a fridge getting tossed 10 miles through the air by an atom bomb and not even breaking a bone - but we roll with it. We tolerate this new incarnation of Indiana Jones as a full-on comic book figure because, god damn it, we still get a kick out of Ford and his fedora and his whip.
Nobody ever loved James Bond...they thought he was cool, and Roger Moore had fun with the character even when he was rolling his eyes at the shit he had to play. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull could've worked on this level and been perfectly fine...but thanks to Ford it has a little extra juice.
And the movie also benefits from the directorial hand of Steven Spielberg, whose action staging remains outstanding. Spielberg may have just been rolling with the punches, taking on every bit of absurdity Lucas wanted to throw into the movie...but thank God it's Spielberg steering the ship instead of George. The last three Star Wars movies proved that Lucas is not much as a director...Spielberg, though, is an expert at this kind of stuff, and no matter how dumb the action gets, the thrill of the staging and the cutting and John Williams' score stays palpable.
The new elements provide a little extra animation to the action routines, particularly the new stars Cate Blanchett and Shia LaBeouf. Blanchett is such a marvelous actor, probably the best going in the world right now male or female. Yeah, we'd prefer to see her tackle great roles in great art...but it's incredible fun to watch her play this character too, a Russian secret agent possessed of a certain vague kinkiness and a determination that borders on lunacy. Blanchett is so brilliant that, just by her posture and voice and expressions, she is able to suggest all sorts of dimensions to her character that the script doesn't have nearly enough time to deal with. And the way she pronounces "Dr. Jones" is hilarious...almost as hilarious as how Naomi Harris pronounced "Jack Sparrow" in the last two Pirates of the Caribbean flicks.
There isn't even a hint of embarrassment when Blanchett has to fence Shia LaBeouf while the two are poised precariously on a pair of military vehicles racing along a jungle road. The same can't be said for poor Shia when his testicles get battered by a bunch of spiny plants later in the same sequence (more wackiness).
Hard to blame Shia for being a bit disconcerted here, maybe thinking to himself, "Okay...there goes my career down the drain." Unfortunately it's a bit of a thankless role for Shia, who first must view Indy as a doddering old man, then be awestruck by Indy's proficiency and ability to pummel people with his fists. LaBeouf survives by his sheer star presence which is considerable. Transformers convinced me that this kid is gonna be huge...and Disturbia convinced me that he can actually act some. This role adds little to his reputation but he adds a lot of spark and charisma to the movie, and you can tell in his scenes with Ford that the old man received an energy boost by playing with such a dynamic personality.
I hope I haven't been too effusive in my praise for the movie's good elements, and created the impression that I think this is anything more than a load of claptrap. What I wanted to convey more than anything was the warm feeling the movie left me with...the sense of curious satisfaction in spite of everything. No, I don't think George Lucas has done himself any favors...in fact, the film left me with a lower opinion of him than I had before (and it was already pretty low after the Star Wars fiascoes). But it's a measure of the enduring appeal of the Indiana Jones character that, despite Lucas's best self-destructive efforts, one can still smile after all the wackiness, and get slightly giddy when the famous John Williams theme comes up again at the end.
Lucas managed to make me hate Star Wars...but, though he appeared to try, he didn't make me hate Indiana Jones.
