You might argue that it's not supposed to be a great movie - just a fun time. Nonsense. Making a fun movie is the hardest thing in the world. Hitchcock didn't wear a suit every day of his life because suits are the most comfortable thing for a portly English gentleman to wear. He was a man who had a job to do. To all apologists, I would urge you to go back and rewatch "Raiders of the Lost Ark," which made having fun feel like the hardest, most rewarding work ever. Spielberg was coming off of "1941," a movie overstuffed with Hollywood bloat and misfired pseudo-comedic energy, and there is a relentless sense of getting back to basics in "Raiders." Not one thing is wasted in that movie. The stone stops rolling, but Indy never does.
In sad fairness, "Crystal Skull" gets off to an interesting beginning. When we first see Indy, he's being unloaded out of the trunk of a car, while Russians flank him on all sides with machine gun rifles. Russians in this movie always "chick-chick" their guns in perfect melodic unison - damn that commie conformity! Cate Blanchett appears. You can tell she's the villain, because she speaks with a perfectly ridiculous accent, while modelling tight Soviet soldier wear and trim nightmare-50s black hair.
I love Cate Blanchett, but there is something queasy about her first appearance. For one thing, she doesn't really look Russian. In fact, nothing about her in the entire movie will be particularly Russian. Actually, nothing about her will be particularly particular. You could kind of believe that the Nazis just wanted power for the sake of power, but it's a bit harder to accept the Russians as such faceless evildoers, and Spielberg and Lucas don't really go out of there way to pencil in any real motivation.
The problem with Blanchett's character is that they never quite figure out why she wants what she wants (nor do they ever figure out exactly what it is that she wants, but more on that later.) At times, she resembles the evil German villain from "Raiders of the Lost Ark," who lusted after the power of the Ark of the Covenant in order to conquer the world. (This is a very silly motivation, but it is a motivation.) Blanchett's Russian wants the power of the Crystal Skull because, well, it's powerful. (This may be an anti-narrative riff on the meaninglessness of the Cold War, but boy is it boring.)
The problem with Blanchett's character is that they never quite figure out why she wants what she wants (nor do they ever figure out exactly what it is that she wants, but more on that later.) At times, she resembles the evil German villain from "Raiders of the Lost Ark," who lusted after the power of the Ark of the Covenant in order to conquer the world. (This is a very silly motivation, but it is a motivation.) Blanchett's Russian wants the power of the Crystal Skull because, well, it's powerful. (This may be an anti-narrative riff on the meaninglessness of the Cold War, but boy is it boring.)
Yet at other times, she more resembles the evil financier from "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade," lusting after the incredible wisdom and knowledge to be gained from uncovering the hidden artifact. Indeed, at the absolute climax of the movie, which nearly resembles the end of "2001" but actually resembles the end of "Mission to Mars" and makes even less sense than both movies genetically combined in a wormhole, she bravely announces, "I want... to KNOW!"
I should tell you that that assertion leads her to achieve absolute physiological transcendence, which, in this movie's frame of mind, means that she dissipates into a ball of pure energy. Yes, it makes me tremor with sad glee to inform you that, like Ang Lee's "Hulk" (and, curiously, "Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis," the classic adventure game from LucasArts), this is a story in which the climax of the movie sees the villain painfully transmogrify into a gigantic ball of gaseous neon.
Back to the beginning. Indy has been captured by the evil Russians, who want him to find something buried in the government's warehouse of secrets. Said warehouse resembles the warehouse at the end of "Raiders of the Lost Ark," because, would you believe it, it IS that warehouse! We know this, because in a few minutes, after Indy has driven several trucks through several thousand boxes (no doubt destroying the Philosopher's Stone and the map to Xanadu in the process), we briefly see one box open, and inside is the Ark of the Covenant.
This is a tiny little throwaway shot - a gift to the fans - yet it hit me in my stomach. It was like the moment in T3 when Arnold visited a strip club and got his classic biker outfit off of a male stripper. It was funny, yet it seemed to violate what little reality can exist in a story about an evil robot from the apocalyptic future.
What happens next, though, basically pushes the movie from too-late sequel into epic self-parody. Indy runs through the desert and finds himself in what appears to be a tiny town populated entirely by crash test dummies. He finds a ticking clock. In the distance, a nuclear missile is fired. What to do? Indy jumps into a lead-lined refrigerator. The missile blows everything up. And, in a moment which sounded the death knell of my childhood, out of the gigantic mushroom cloud blows the refrigerator, unharmed, and out rolls Indy.
What in the fuck madness is going on in this scene? The earlier Indy movies were always funny, but they were also dangerous, and brutal, and just a teeny bit real. That was the whole joy of the Indiana Jones character - he got beat up by practically everyone, but he just kept on going. With this scene, Lucas and Spielberg essentially announce that anything and everything is possible. This is a subtle preparation for later in the movie, when... well, I won't tell you what happens exactly, because it's so unexpected and so far outside whatever tiny rules of reality still existed in the Indy-verse that essentially anything could have happened. If the climax of the movie featured a parade of dancing hippopotami emerging from a pentagon-shaped spacecraft while Cole Porter and Frank Sinatra serenaded them with the Canadian national anthem, it would have made nearly as much sense, plotwise.
As the sixth season of "24" proved, once you've exploded a nuclear bomb, there's really nowhere else to go. The movie settles in for an endless second act in which Jim Broadbent and John Hurt and Ray Winstone play excellent British actors utterly wasting their talent on dogshit roles. This film is such an embarrassment of riches; of money, of acting talent, of untapped possibility.
I should tell you that that assertion leads her to achieve absolute physiological transcendence, which, in this movie's frame of mind, means that she dissipates into a ball of pure energy. Yes, it makes me tremor with sad glee to inform you that, like Ang Lee's "Hulk" (and, curiously, "Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis," the classic adventure game from LucasArts), this is a story in which the climax of the movie sees the villain painfully transmogrify into a gigantic ball of gaseous neon.
Back to the beginning. Indy has been captured by the evil Russians, who want him to find something buried in the government's warehouse of secrets. Said warehouse resembles the warehouse at the end of "Raiders of the Lost Ark," because, would you believe it, it IS that warehouse! We know this, because in a few minutes, after Indy has driven several trucks through several thousand boxes (no doubt destroying the Philosopher's Stone and the map to Xanadu in the process), we briefly see one box open, and inside is the Ark of the Covenant.
This is a tiny little throwaway shot - a gift to the fans - yet it hit me in my stomach. It was like the moment in T3 when Arnold visited a strip club and got his classic biker outfit off of a male stripper. It was funny, yet it seemed to violate what little reality can exist in a story about an evil robot from the apocalyptic future.
What happens next, though, basically pushes the movie from too-late sequel into epic self-parody. Indy runs through the desert and finds himself in what appears to be a tiny town populated entirely by crash test dummies. He finds a ticking clock. In the distance, a nuclear missile is fired. What to do? Indy jumps into a lead-lined refrigerator. The missile blows everything up. And, in a moment which sounded the death knell of my childhood, out of the gigantic mushroom cloud blows the refrigerator, unharmed, and out rolls Indy.
What in the fuck madness is going on in this scene? The earlier Indy movies were always funny, but they were also dangerous, and brutal, and just a teeny bit real. That was the whole joy of the Indiana Jones character - he got beat up by practically everyone, but he just kept on going. With this scene, Lucas and Spielberg essentially announce that anything and everything is possible. This is a subtle preparation for later in the movie, when... well, I won't tell you what happens exactly, because it's so unexpected and so far outside whatever tiny rules of reality still existed in the Indy-verse that essentially anything could have happened. If the climax of the movie featured a parade of dancing hippopotami emerging from a pentagon-shaped spacecraft while Cole Porter and Frank Sinatra serenaded them with the Canadian national anthem, it would have made nearly as much sense, plotwise.
As the sixth season of "24" proved, once you've exploded a nuclear bomb, there's really nowhere else to go. The movie settles in for an endless second act in which Jim Broadbent and John Hurt and Ray Winstone play excellent British actors utterly wasting their talent on dogshit roles. This film is such an embarrassment of riches; of money, of acting talent, of untapped possibility.
Steven Spielberg and George Lucas could have made any kind of movie they wanted to, as long as they called it "Indiana Jones." In the last ten years, Tom Stoppard, Frank Darabont, and M. Night Shyamalan all took turns writing an "Indiana Jones" (those unfilmed scripts will someday make a wonderful all-digital trilogy.) You would have hoped that this would have felt like one of Steven Spielberg's latter-day triumphs - "AI," or "War of the Worlds," or "Munich," or "Minority Report," pulpy big flicks that subtly twist post-millenium, post-9/11 fears in a palatable, genre-inflected, imperfect yet watchable cocktail. But no, instead this feels like one of George Lucas's prequels - all the great actors and wondrous special effects that money can buy, and not one single idea in his empty, bearded head.
Here's the thing. Nestled inside of this awful, awful movie is one of the best scenes that any bloated summer blockbuster has come up with in years. For most of the middle section of the movie, Indiana Jones pals around with Shia LaBoeuf, who essays the role of a greaser with a striking professionalism that indicates two possible things: 1) LaBoeuf had complete confidence in his director, his producer, and his fellow actors and so thought that he was playing a part to rival Hamlet, or 2) LaBoeuf realized that the only way to come out clean from this shambling mishmash of a movie was to keep his head down and do his job. The two men engage in what feels like hours of exposition and then head down to South America, where they go into a temple and find a glowing Crystal Skull. This takes approximately half an hour. Then they get captured by the Russians.
And then, bless the world, Marion appears. Karen Allen and Harrison Ford had chemistry to last a lifetime in "Raiders of the Lost Ark," and the moment she comes onscreen, you can feel Ford coming out of the depressive monotone shell that's scarred just about every movie he's done since "The Fugitive." He's chitting, she's chatting, he's zipping, she's zapping; they're having FUN. They escape the Russians, but Indy and Marion get caught in quick sand. While Shia goes off to find a stick, they talk. Surprising nobody, Marion reveals that Shia is actually Indy's son. Bazongo! As Indy tries to recover from this information, Shia extends a stick to him. Except it's not a stick; it's a gigantic snake!
This is the giddiness that we remember - toppling one thing right on top of another, in a nice and subtle way. (Note to all aspiring screenwriters - a nuclear bomb going off will never be subtle.) But then they get out of the quicksand, and I have to tell you, the movie never once stops to just let them talk, this funny new family unit, except for one tiny instance when they're tied up. Yup, they get recaptured. So many people get captured so often in this movie, only to escape again, only to be recaptured. It's a plot arc that resembles a seismograph, appropriate considering how often the earth itself shakes.
I'm not asking that Indy and Marion spend the whole movie walking and talking through Vienna, but look at "Iron Man." In just a few well-placed scenes, you get such a wonderful romance between Downey and Paltrow. Bless them for bringing back Karen Allen, but curse them for wasting her - there's nothing in this film to match the moment in "Raiders" when, in the middle of a gunfight, she pauses to drink some liquor that's pouring out of a bullet hole. It was those little touches that made all the difference. It's those little touches that are utterly missing.
I'm giving Spielberg a pass on this one, because the movie is directed about as well as the shittiest movie ever made can be directed. With "Crystal Skull," George Lucas has officially shat all over our collective childhoods one more time. It's not ending anytime soon: the preview for the all-digital "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" was greeted with utter silence followed by giggles.
Here's the thing. Nestled inside of this awful, awful movie is one of the best scenes that any bloated summer blockbuster has come up with in years. For most of the middle section of the movie, Indiana Jones pals around with Shia LaBoeuf, who essays the role of a greaser with a striking professionalism that indicates two possible things: 1) LaBoeuf had complete confidence in his director, his producer, and his fellow actors and so thought that he was playing a part to rival Hamlet, or 2) LaBoeuf realized that the only way to come out clean from this shambling mishmash of a movie was to keep his head down and do his job. The two men engage in what feels like hours of exposition and then head down to South America, where they go into a temple and find a glowing Crystal Skull. This takes approximately half an hour. Then they get captured by the Russians.
And then, bless the world, Marion appears. Karen Allen and Harrison Ford had chemistry to last a lifetime in "Raiders of the Lost Ark," and the moment she comes onscreen, you can feel Ford coming out of the depressive monotone shell that's scarred just about every movie he's done since "The Fugitive." He's chitting, she's chatting, he's zipping, she's zapping; they're having FUN. They escape the Russians, but Indy and Marion get caught in quick sand. While Shia goes off to find a stick, they talk. Surprising nobody, Marion reveals that Shia is actually Indy's son. Bazongo! As Indy tries to recover from this information, Shia extends a stick to him. Except it's not a stick; it's a gigantic snake!
This is the giddiness that we remember - toppling one thing right on top of another, in a nice and subtle way. (Note to all aspiring screenwriters - a nuclear bomb going off will never be subtle.) But then they get out of the quicksand, and I have to tell you, the movie never once stops to just let them talk, this funny new family unit, except for one tiny instance when they're tied up. Yup, they get recaptured. So many people get captured so often in this movie, only to escape again, only to be recaptured. It's a plot arc that resembles a seismograph, appropriate considering how often the earth itself shakes.
I'm not asking that Indy and Marion spend the whole movie walking and talking through Vienna, but look at "Iron Man." In just a few well-placed scenes, you get such a wonderful romance between Downey and Paltrow. Bless them for bringing back Karen Allen, but curse them for wasting her - there's nothing in this film to match the moment in "Raiders" when, in the middle of a gunfight, she pauses to drink some liquor that's pouring out of a bullet hole. It was those little touches that made all the difference. It's those little touches that are utterly missing.
I'm giving Spielberg a pass on this one, because the movie is directed about as well as the shittiest movie ever made can be directed. With "Crystal Skull," George Lucas has officially shat all over our collective childhoods one more time. It's not ending anytime soon: the preview for the all-digital "Star Wars: The Clone Wars" was greeted with utter silence followed by giggles.
1 comment:
OK D -- once again, I must disagree. You are darkness; I am light. I thought Indy was FUN, HILARIOUS, and I think that two of the chases in Crystal Skull are better than all chase scenes in the previous three. That said, I also love Temple of Doom, so maybe I am still 11 years old, while you are an old man of 23.
For those who are whimsical and nostalgic, the opening frame says it all: four cool teens racing through the desert in an American Graffiti Hot Rod!!! Racing the Russians!!!!
Cate Blanchett: evil to the core; hot to the core -- she even has a quasi-tramp stamp Hammer & Sickle on the back of her commie uniform!! Yes, there is nothing particularly Russian about her (although her command of the Russian language? About a thousand times better than Sean Connery's in Hunt for Red October). But for that teenager out at the theater for a laugh, she's as Russian as Boris & Natasha.
As for the nuclear bomb blast, I was dying during that scene. And if you died during the opening scene in Last Crusade, when River Phoenix was bumbling through the circus cars, stumbling on alligators and snakes -- it's the same thing here!! Indy stumbles into a mad circus where he doesn't belong: 1950s America, with a paperboy and a guy watering his lawn, and Howdy Doody on TV!!
The reason Indy is so much better than the film I feared it was going to be (and you referenced) -- that is, T3 -- is that it touches on many of the same themes as the previous films, but it does them in radically different ways. T3 just ripped them off wholesale, changing nothing.
My only criticism is that I thought the soundtrack blew. Contrast to Temple of Doom, where I think the Indy soundtrack reached its zenith -- all those minor-key horns as Thuggee goons whip their boy-slaves. None of those sweeping soundtrack moments in Crystal Skull, and that was disappointing.
And then Spielberg put together some timeless chase scenes. OBVI you have to suspend some disbelief, but once we're beyond that, the choreography is new, exciting, and seamless. Indy gets beat up, he's jumping from car to car, he's mashing Russian face, he's doing it!
Last thing: my heart was racing pretty much the entire film.
I am giving Indy 4 a standing ovation.
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