Title: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Movie Review
Genre: Action/Adventure
Cast: Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Karen Allen, Shia LeBeouf
Director: Steven Spielberg
Release: (2008)
A few weeks ago I took some time off from my new life as a real person to make a belated pilgrimage back to the site of my undergraduate alma mater for an overdue reunion with my three longtime college housemates. Over the years we’ve kept in touch in various ways (e-mail, phone, fantasy football league, etc.), as well as getting together in various combinations of two and three for different reasons now and then, but in all the time since we graduated this was the first time that all four of us were together again at the same time. Now, it hasn’t been forever. But it has been longer than we would have ever expected it to be when we graduated. Let’s just say it’s been long enough that those three were all just a little balder, fatter, or otherwise older looking than I remember, but it’s been short enough that I’m still as young and spry looking as ever. Funny how that works. The interesting thing about it, though, was that once we were all together again – same guys, back in the same surroundings – it felt almost as if we had never left. And so it was that, without anyone else there to remind us that we weren’t nineteen anymore, we all fell easily into that trap of believing we were still as young as we ever were before. And, like so many other “creepy, old guys at the club” before us, we all had to be taught way that we weren’t.
For the ones who had married, settled down, maybe even had a kid or two in the years since we last drizzled hell on the bar staff, noise ordinances, and property values of that town – the lesson came in the form of waking up with a throbbing, cranial reminder that their bodies were no longer equipped to process mixed gallons of liquor and beer on just a few hours of sleep and be ready to go again for kegs and eggs by nine. For me, the lesson came in the form of a dislocated shoulder on the very first play of a long anticipated, two-on-two, (deep sigh) … touch football game. Ee-yeah. Let me just let that sink in for a moment. Now, in my own defense, I had separated that shoulder pretty bad several years ago (no, not in a pillow fight) and it has since become kind of a trick shoulder, prone to this sort of thing. But still – in this situation, on that field, where the four of us used to play much rougher games on a daily basis – it served as a jarring reminder that just bringing us all back together in the same place again didn’t mean we were really still in college again.
So why do I mention all this? Because before I sound too critical of George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford for thinking it would be a great idea to get the whole Indiana Jones gang back together for old times’ sake, I want them to know this … I understand. I understand how exciting it can be when the idea first occurs as a possibility. I understand what it’s like as plans start falling into place and how easy it can be to get swept up in the memory of good times and stories you hadn’t thought about for years. I understand how the anticipation of it all can begin to stir up things inside you, the remainders of a person you used to be and hadn’t even noticed was gone until now. And I understand what it’s like to finally get there again, in that familiar old place with those familiar old faces, where if you all agree to let the world go you can almost actually believe that not a thing has changed. But what I also understand is that outside of that little group no one, and I mean no one, else sees you that way you feel. So I hope they’ll understand that it is with great empathy that I must now explain how Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull looked from the outside looking in.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull picks up sometime in the late 1950s, where we find the world’s most dangerous university professor once again caught in a bit of a pickle. Having been kidnapped by the Russians and smuggled deep into the heart of a restricted American military base in the Nevada desert, Dr. Jones (Harrison Ford) is forced to help the nefarious Colonel/Doctor Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett) break into a top secret warehouse on the base known as “Hangar 51” (clever, right) and uncover the hidden remains from an unexplained U.F.O. crash in the area several years earlier. Despite his best efforts to foil their plans, Jones manages eventually to escape with only his life and, of course, his hat (which is pretty good considering he had to hang on to them through a rocket sled ride across the desert and a nuclear explosion that incinerates half of the state to do so).
Upon his return to academia, Jones finds himself having to face accusations and interrogations from his own government, as well as suspicion from his own university, regarding his relationship with Spalko and the Russians. In a world where the trumped up paranoia of an imminent Communist invasion has allowed rational thought to give way to the political expediency of scapegoating, anyone associated with the Russians in any way is considered guilty until proven innocent – even the great Dr. Henry Jones. Under pressure to take leave from the university, Jones decides to just leave them all behind for good and is on his way to try to find work across the country when his plans are interrupted by a message about an old friend of his in trouble. The message, delivered by a young, motorcycle greaser named “Mutt” Williams (Shia LeBeouf), sets Indy and Mutt off to Peru to try to help retrieve both their mutual friend and the legendary crystal skull that he may have disappeared with.
Once in Peru, the surprises for Indy and Mutt continue to unfold. Reunions (both welcome and unwelcome), discoveries, double-crosses, triple-crosses, and the answers to some of life’s greatest mysteries all come fast and furious in the precious few moments between extended jungle car chase scenes and furious insect swarms. Perhaps most surprising of all is the discovery that the famed crystal skull is nothing more than a Spencer’s Gifts dorm room table decoration. (Which would be awesome in any dorm, by the way.) But, since they already came all that way to get it, they decided to keep fighting it out for it anyway. Whhhhiipp-sshhhh!
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