INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL

Let’s get the consumer-advice angle out the way first. Yes, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is good – or at least good enough. 65-year-old Harrison Ford doesn’t embarrass himself as an action hero (it helps that he came relatively late to stardom; even in our most distant memories he’s never a callow youth, always rather grumpy and weather-beaten). Steven Spielberg hasn’t lost his enthusiasm for staging action. It’s not a great film. It’s not hugely better than, say, National Treasure 2 – the climax, in a not-so-mythical “lost city”, is strikingly similar – but it’s slightly better. The jokes are funnier, the characters more robust. You can go watch it at the cinema and not feel ripped-off. Or you can wait for DVD, and impress that girl in Accounts by being the guy who says, “All these Event Movies are nothing but hype; I’m going to wait for DVD” when they talk about the film round the coffee-machine at the office. In the end, choosing to see (or not see) Crystal Skull has everything to do with those coffee-machine conversations, almost nothing to do with the film itself. 

Clearly, there was no pressing need for a fourth Indiana Jones adventure (wasn’t the third one called “The Last Crusade”?) – unless, perhaps, they made one about a creaky, superannuated Indy trying to get by in a world where his brand of bullwhip-wielding heroism had become obsolete. There’s some precedent for that, especially in the 70s (a decade devoted to upending sacred cows): Robin and Marian (1976) showed a middle-aged Robin Hood, while spoofs poked fun at iconic figures like Dracula, Zorro and Sherlock Holmes. Alas, the Movie Brats of the 70s are loath to let go of their own creations: Crystal Skull’s Indy is near-unchanged, still dodging bullets and barrelling down secret passages – albeit with a couple of wry asides suggesting it’s “not as easy as it used to be”. Maybe, by keeping Indy young, Spielberg, Ford and producer George Lucas are also keeping themselves young. Or maybe they like the idea of three greying 60-somethings getting revenge on the young and carefree by nabbing their multiplex money.

The film is initially coy about showing its hero – we see an overhead shot, then the back of his head, then a silhouette with that trademark fedora – but once he’s revealed it’s business as usual, self-consciously so. Retro touches include a ticking-clock countdown and a red line on a map tracing Indy’s journey from A to B – plus of course (for all its CGI effects) Crystal Skull is set in pre-digital days; even the intricate machines in the Lost City work with springs and pulleys, not chips and lasers, giving the whole thing a welcome sense of solidity. Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett), Indy’s chief antagonist, favours a rapier – talk about low-tech! – as her weapon of choice, the film’s action highlight being a sword-fight between Irina and sidekick Mutt (Shia LaBeouf), both of them balanced on speeding jeeps in the middle of the jungle.

That extended jungle chase, ending in not one but three spectacular waterfalls (nice incidental joke: Indy takes off his hat in anticipation as his tiny boat prepares to hurtle down the monster falls), is the core of the film’s success – something of a theme-park ride but thrillingly done, with a constant back-and-forth as the titular Skull (wrapped in a bundle) keeps changing hands, grabbed by Irina and her thugs then won back by Indy and his cohorts. There are red ants, mischievous monkeys and at least one narrowly-avoided abyss. Earlier, there are scorpions – did you know the smaller the scorpion, the more deadly its sting? you do now – quicksand, mummified remains and pygmy-like natives with blowpipes. All these ingredients, tracing their lineage mostly from pulp comics and adventure serials of the 1930s, seemed a lot fresher when Raiders of the Lost Ark came out than they do now, when they’ve been recycled in The Mummy, The Scorpion King, National Treasure etc. Still, packing them together – and stirring the mix with top-of-the-line pacing and editing – at least makes Crystal Skull a satisfying ride.

Was it necessary, though? That’s the question – why did they do it? Surely they don’t need the money. One strains to find evidence of directorial personality, especially knowing how Spielberg has changed and matured in the 19 years since Last Crusade; didn't he make Schindler’s List – not to mention Munich, a meditation both on modern Israel and the ‘War on Terror’? When Indy’s friend says “I barely recognise this country anymore” (the film is set during the Communist witch-hunt of the 50s) it’s surely a deliberate dig at the neo-con and Bushite excesses of the past few years. When Indy himself, thinking of absent friends, muses he’s “reached the age when Life stops giving us things and starts taking them away”, it surely reflects the worldview of Spielberg and Co., inching past retirement-age. Maybe the best evidence of sexagenarians at the helm is that pedantic title, containing at least three words too many. Yes, admittedly what matters isn’t a single Crystal Skull but the Kingdom itself, with all the Crystal Skulls side-by-side, but I mean come on.

Does it matter? Clearly not. If Spielberg wants to mimic his mimics instead of making films on subjects close to his heart, that’s his prerogative. Besides, Indy is close to his heart. As with Revenge of the Sith a couple of years ago, nostalgia hits hard – if intermittently – in Crystal Skull: Indy hasn’t grown as a character but he gets some emotional closure, notably by being reunited with Marion (Karen Allen) from Raiders – and he even gets a chance to resolve some of those daddy issues (see Last Crusade) by becoming a daddy himself. Long-time fans may get misty-eyed. Just the sight of that bullwhip and fedora may elicit a lump in the throat, if you’re around 35 and feeling fragile.   

Pleasant adventure yarn, check. Pangs of nostalgia, check. But there’s yet another way of looking at Crystal Skull – as a veiled reflection of the Atomic Age, and the worldview of those Cold War kids who grew up in the shadow of the Bomb (1930s and 1950s both belong to the distant past for today’s youngsters, but for Spielberg – born 1947 – the 20-year gap is significant: Raiders of the Lost Ark was the past, but this is his childhood). Early in the film, Indy actually survives a nuclear blast – and a military voice sternly commands those present not to look at the blast, whatever happens. The Bomb is too much for human eyes – just like one shouldn’t look at the Crystal Skull, just like those Nazis’ faces melted when they looked at the contents of the Lost Ark. There’s a conservative streak in Raiders and its sequels: Blanchett’s villain yearns for knowledge, but knowledge – it turns out – is a dangerous thing, just like Cold War kids lived with the constant consciousness of a line that mustn’t be crossed (pointedly unlike today’s kids, steeped in the seemingly infinite power of Science and Technology in the age of the genome). Maybe that’s what marks Crystal Skull as a film from another generation – and maybe also explains why Indy remains unchanged, un-aged, because knowledge also means the knowledge of Death, and Cold War kids prefer not to face that particular Crystal Skull. Everyone grows old and decrepit, even Indiana Jones – at least someday. But not yet. Not now.