Talking Shit About Movies - Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull
Franchises are an interesting concept. An original gets created that’s so good (to someone, I suppose. I mean, Applebee’s is a franchise and that place sucks rocks) that the idea just has to be shared. The originator sells franchise licenses to make carbon copies of the original to repeat the success and charm of the original restaurant in perpetuity. Sounds like a nice idea, right? Anywhere you go you can get a delicious cheeseburger just like the McDonald’s down the street. Or you can get that same Bloomin’ Onion that you and your family just love to split at any Outback with fairly minimal variation from place to place. What normally ends up happening is, through mass production, the product and idea get watered down to the point that you’re left with something bland and far less palatable than the original. But the problem is that, as a breed, human beings like the familiar. On the whole, person X would rather nosh on some riblets at Applebees than try the divey looking barbecue shack that looks like it would never pass health code, even though it entices you with the smell of hickory smoke and pork as you drive by. That’s just how some people are wired.
There are also franchises in movies. As soon as your movie hits $100 million in box office expect a call from the suits telling you it’s sequel time. The big studios love movie franchises. When they find one you can just imagine them pitching little tents in their Armani suits. Why? Because they don’t have to seek out a new, original script, for one. They just put a 2 next to that Spider Man on their release schedule for two summers from now and wait for it to be done. And the public normally follows suit predictably by coming out in droves. You can’t fault the studio execs. They’re just looking out for their bottom lines, artistic quality be damned. If they know they can trot out some dead horse and make scads of money, why not?
That’s not to say that I’m above franchises. Famous Dave’s, Chick-Fil-A, Buffalo Wild Wings… all good franchises. Movie wise, the original Star Wars is a quintessential franchise, and you can’t f with that. But there’s an inherent distrust of franchises: that we’re getting mass-produced junk instead of something made with love.
Then, of course, there’s Indiana Jones, another franchise brought to you by George Lucas. Indiana Jones has always held a special place in my heart. There are action movies all over the place. A glut of them, really. But Raiders of the Lost Ark was an adventure movie. Adventure movies take you places you’ve never seen in search for things you couldn’t imagine. It allows you to remove yourself from what you know, and accept the fact that an archaeologist can be an asskicker, too. Indy didn’t need guns blazing and things exploding, though a few of each here and there didn’t hurt. He used his head to solve ancient riddles to keep from getting his head cut off, and always managed to escape, no matter how implausibly.
That being said, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull really pushes the bounds of the implausible. Don’t get me wrong. I liked the movie, I really did. I was entertained the whole time. But maybe I just didn’t get how ridiculous some of the things were in the original movies, because there was some stuff that made me laugh out loud at how ridiculous they were. No, I won’t give you examples. I want you to see it for yourself, because one of the things was spoiled for me and I think it deadened how ridiculous it was, and it still was pretty ridiculous to me.
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull centers on Indy’s quest for the crystal skull, which is not just a carved crystal skull, it’s an actual skull from an alien. It is said to unlock El Dorado, the mythical city of gold. Urging him along on this quest is the Soviet government, most notably Colonel Dr. Irina Spalko, played to the archetypal hilt by Cate Blanchett. The Colonel Doctor (which I thought was a joke at first, but she’s really a colonel doctor) wants to use the crystal skull to get to El Dorado as well, where it will give her the ultimate mind control device to take over the world. Well of course it will.
Along the way Indy gets put on extended leave of absence from his teaching job and runs into a young greaser tough named Mutt Williams, played by Shia LeBouf. Yeah, I said that right. A greaser tough. You really need to check your disbelief at the door on this one. Turns out Mutt’s mom was kidnapped and held hostage because of her relationship to Professor Oxley, another archaeologist played by John Hurt, who looks like a fucking mummy. Seriously, if he fell down he’d turn to dust. It’s scary. She told Mutt that she needs Indy’s help.
Then we launch into the classic map cut-scene where we see the flight path to their destination, complete with a million stops in between. They end up in the Amazon and start their quest. They find the crystal skull, and are found by the Russians. When they get to camp both Professor Oxley and Mutt’s mom are there. Oh yeah, Mutt’s mom is the kind of homely chick Marion from Raiders of the Lost Ark who was a total bitch yet Indy and that other guy were totally infatuated with her (played by Karen Allen). I don’t get it either. He could plow throw all of his anthropology students, but he’s hung up on this bitchy woman. I have to say that I love her performance, though. I mean, not love love, because it’s not very good or anything, but you can tell she’s so happy to be there. I can’t remember the last time I saw her in something, and there’s probably a good reason for that.
I’m not going to spoil the rest for you, but you probably already know what happens. Indy succeeds and everyone’s happy in the end. Yay!
Look, I could find a number of reasons to blast this movie out of the water. There is definitely more than a fair share of summer blockbuster cheese: prairie dog reaction shots (aw…), groin shots, the ending… If I were more cynical I would, but maybe I’m mellowing in my old age. There were a couple of things that made me groan, but I couldn’t help but be entertained. If I were looking for realism and grit I wouldn’t go to an Indiana Jones movie. These were made as homage to the original cheesy adventure movies that Lucas and Spielberg grew up with. It’s bound to have some things that make you think “no fucking way.” If you’re expecting more you’re just fooling yourself. This movie is genuinely entertaining from beginning to end. Harrison Ford still does a great job. He moves well even though he probably has perpetual pelvic bruises from banging that skeleton Calista Flockhart. I think there are a lot of worse ways you can spend your movie dollars than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Like anything made by those assholes that made Meet the Spartans.
And at the very least, you’ll think twice before you throw away your old refrigerators. You’ve been warned…