‘Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’ provides a so-so return for Dr. Jones

(Spoiler warning in effect)

I’d just like to begin this review by saying that there’s a lot to like in “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” (hereafter “Indy IV”). The most pleasant surprise, I think, is witnessing Harrison Ford recapture a bit o’ the old magic that has eluded him in the last 10 years or so—it’s nice to know that it took a classic character to resurrect a genuine actor from a morose, mumbling pile. And, at the same time, I love the idea that the film is so unapologetic in reminding you that the times have changed since last we saw our intrepid hero: the year is 1957, and Indiana Jones (Ford) is still adventuring and excavating, despite the nagging feeling that he’s quickly becoming an anachronism in this brave new world. Betrayed by his once-faithful sidekick Mac (Ray Winstone), Indy finds a new adventuring companion in “Mutt” Williams (Shia LeBeouf), a hothead greaser who claims that his mother—hardly a spoiler at this point to reveal that it’s Indy’s old flame Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen)—is in South America in search of their mutual friend Professor Oxley (John Hurt), who in turn was embroiled in the search for a mysterious crystal skull. Meanwhile, the Soviets, led by the devilish Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett), see the skull as the key to gain the upper hand in global psychic warfare...

The problem with all of this, however, is that “Indy IV” only has the very vaguest idea of how to throw its hero into the age of the Red Scare and the atomic bomb. There’s a constant feeling that they’re just kinda making this up as they go along, but hey, that can work (recall Indy’s classic line in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”) and sometimes it does; there are plenty of exciting moments early on that find that classic balance between being thoughtful about the era and being breezy and inconsequential in just the right way: a motorcycle chase against the Soviets is cut in such a way that it not only maximizes the potential for excitement, but slyly suggests that there wasn’t that much difference between the Americans and the Russians’ less-than-savory tactics at the height of mutual paranoia.

Unfortunately, the film loses as time goes on, and ends up leaning on the successes of its predecessors. The Soviets’ megalomaniacal bid to control the hearts and minds of their ideological opponents seems like a perfect way to explore the irresistible yet self-destructive quest for forbidden knowledge—a recurring theme throughout the Indiana Jones films—but soon thereafter the film is content to reduce them to one-dimensional baddies, treated as nothing more than the Nazis of the 1950s. Naturally, the same comes to apply to the film’s action set-pieces, which are mostly derivative of the most memorable scenes from “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” and end up being monumentally boring—easily the most egregious sin for a character long touted as being synonymous with the very concept of “adventure.” Needless to say, it feels utterly wrong to yawn during an Indy film, but a repetitive car chase through the Amazonian jungle was just enough to prompt its fair share.

In the end, the high expectations that surround this film (both real and self-imposed by the filmmakers) find themselves at fatal odds with the desire to bring enough new elements to make it worth our while to see the first Indiana Jones film in 20 years. As I said in my review of “Speed Racer,” there’s a storm of emotions that was bound to come attendant to any Indy sequel at this stage of the game, and I can’t deny that I admire the hell out of Spielberg for making such hefty promises, even if he’s only kept a scant few by the time the end credits roll. Ultimately, however, my feelings on the subject are pretty easily summed up in an analysis of the MacGuffin that drives the plot: by taking the aforementioned quests for forbidden knowledge that have been traditionally grounded in the theological and forcing them through the extraterrestrial, “Indy IV” excessively literalizes the spiritual underpinnings that drove the search for the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail, which in turn betrays the spirit of the whole enterprise and kind of kills the suspense right then and there. In other words: aliens. Why did it have to be aliens?