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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Reviewed by Theo Michelfeld
Posted: May 24, 2008

About ten seconds into the new Indiana Jones flick, you'll be reminded that you've entered a distinctly "Spielbergian" playground of visual gags. By the end of the opening credits, which rollick along to Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog," you'll know that this installment has moved the Indy saga out of the World War II era and well into the rock 'n' roll 50's. Twenty minutes in you'll realize that the franchise has taken its "Anything Goes" ethos to a new level. And by the end, depending on your filmgoing temperament, you'll either be reveling in, or reviling, the sheer audacity these storytellers have brought to the proceedings this time around. As for me and my temperament: We loved it.

I can't think of any artist who has been critically punished for his greatness more than Steven Spielberg has. For some reason, because he has made six or seven of the greatest movies of all time, viewers seem to treat his every new film as some kind of competition from which they must emerge unimpressed, all the while assuming that the director, like a world class golfer, is playing with the lowest possible handicap. It seems too great a concession to simply enjoy one of his "merely excellent" films, and feel a bit of gratitude that for two, or two-and-a-half hours, you get to watch a prolific master's next labor of love, and not another hack job off the Hollywood assembly line.

No, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is not the second coming of E.T., or Schindler's List, or Jaws, or Saving Private Ryan, or Jurassic Park, or Close Encounters, or, for sure, Raiders of the Lost Ark. Nor does it achieve the kind of perfection that one, or two, or zero films seem to manage each calendar year. Yeah, verily, Steven Spielberg's new movie is nothing more earth-shattering than a blast from start to finish, a feat of grandiose filmmaking virtuosity, one of the best films of the year so far, and a conceptual hoot. That ought to be good enough for a trip to the cinema, even if not enough to knock every chip off of every shoulder.

Like a responsible critic, I will dutifully acknowledge this film's thimbleful of flaws: its one or two failed forays into humor, and its occasionally weak dialogue. They matter not. Spielberg's movie also conjures the most spirited fun from its far-flung ingredients, which include A-bomb testing, archeology, army ants, flying saucers, greasers and jocks, Mayan temples, McCarthyism, motorcycles, rapier fights, Russian spies, and vine-swinging monkeys. It also includes at least two scenes of such mind-blowing spectacle they simply must be witnessed on the big screen. So be advised, folks, if you're determined to get through this thing without smiling, you'll have to crank your disenchantment way up high beforehand.

The film stars a less self-serious incarnation of Harrison Ford than we've seen in many years. It features the incomparable Cate Blanchett hamming it up as a Russian femme fatale. It's got Shia LaBeouf shamelessly evoking Brando and James Dean. It's got a gradually hilarious John Hurt acting seriously spaced out. And its got Karen Allen, reprising her role as Marion Ravenwood, and appearing, bless her heart, to be actually spaced out.

Give it a shot, folks. It won't make you any less mature. And if you enjoy movies, let me suggest that you always give Spielberg a shot. Let's compare him, for a moment, to James Cameron, who hit one out of the park ten years ago with Titanic, and hasn't made a non-documentary movie since. In that same time span, Spielberg has given us seven new films, most of which are outstanding, and all of which are beautiful. He continues to do what he was born to do, regardless of the impossible standards he has set for himself. That's because he knows he needn't rewrite cinematic history every time out. Sometimes an awesome movie will do just fine.

Copyright © 2008 Theo Michelfeld