Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Warning:  This review contains what might be regarded as plot spoilers.  See coomments.

"Indidana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" is a disappointing movie.  It is disappointing because it is hardly a movie at all, like most Hollywood action movies today, but instead is nothing more than an extended series of chase scenes into which special effects are dropped like fake icicles on a Christmas tree.

The "McGuffin" (Hitchcock's term for the object being sought or pursued that keeps the plot going, but about which the audience does not, rightly, care) is a crystal skull that has to be returned to the mythical land/city of El Dorado.  Karen Allen returns from "Raiders of the Lost Ark" (looking 20 years  older although still not bad), but she has nothing much to do.  My younger daughter was disappointed that "hot" young actor Shia LaBeouf was brought in to play Indiana Jones' unknown son, but given little to do in terms of acting.  The part could have been played by ANY young, athletic looking man.  My daughter insists that this guy is really a good actor, especially in scenes requiring comedy.  You will not find that out, if so, from this movie.  His scenes at the BEGINNING of the movie are somewhat promising, but he gets totally lost in the LONG series of chases that consume the entire last 2/3's of the movie.

That is the problem.  NO ONE in this movie has a chance to ACT.  The conintuous chases, and sepcial effects, give them no TIME.  Even Cate Balnacett is pretty much wasted, despite an amazing make up job turning her into the vicious Communist psychic obsessed with KNOWLEDGE pursuing the heroes and heroine.  She is the most impressive actor in the movie, but mainly just POSES from time to time in momentary pauses between action scenes (such as a sword duel between her and the young actor in two separate vehicles). 

What happened to Steven Spielberg (not to mention George Lucus).  Spielberg was once able to avoid his movies becoming nothing but special effects and chases.  Remember "Jaws", and the first "Raiders of the Lost Ark"?  Somewhere, Spielberg fell into the trap of present day Hollywood--that the way to make an action movie is with continuous special effects.

The movies end should remind you of the WORST part of "Raiders of the Lost Ark":  the ridiculous "God out of a machine" ending.   As in "Raiders of the Lost Ark", Harrison Ford (given no acting to do in this movie, although still able to lookup to the action scenes, which may be an acting feat in itself) is a mere spectator at the end of this movie, as he was at the end of "Raiders of the Lost Ark".  The climax of the movie is all about Cate Blanchett and ROSWELL (yes, the alien autopsy and all of that--adding nothing to the movie but hokum cobining new age Hollywood mysticism with an appeal to the kook UFO crowd).

Okay.  The special effects are sometimes impressive.  The "action" is coninuous (which, for me, made it BORING).  This is (as in the remake of "king Kong") a major director falling prey to both his ego and his preception of what he (and Hollywood) thinks the public wants these days.  If this IS what we want, we are in trouble.   If we are only interested ni computer generated glitz and surface, ersatz excitement, that may explain the popularity of Barack Obama in some quarters.

Affred Hitchcock was right, as usual.  REAL excitement and suspense does NOT come from explosions.  It comes frm the ticking bomb, where the audience knows the characters are in danger, but they are (at least partly) unaware of the magnitude of the danger. 

Is the movie worth seeing?  On my rating scale (the 0 to 100 scale described in yesterday's entry on "Iron Man" (whee movies like "The Wizard of Oz" are 100), it is NOT.  However, this is one of those movies that have interesting aspects that make it worth seeing.  Karen Allen returns.  It is the continuation of one of the most beloved movie series of all time.  It has enough touches to make it worth seeing, but only barely and without raising the rating much.

Rating:  59 (as explained yesterday, movies need to have a rating above 60 to be worth seeing, and really a rating above 70 is necessary for a movie to be clearly worth your time in watching--although movies given a lower rating may be worth seeing because of special circumstances/touches).   Internet Movie Database contributors presently rate it as 7.1 (on a 10 scale), which is GOOD on Internet Movie Database (where movies rated above 6 are generally worth seeing, and often darn good).  That rating is TOO HIGH.  This movie really is not that good, even with the touches (and history) that make it worth seeing for most people who liked the other Indiana Jones movies (the third one was an indication, in my view, of what would happen in this one, with its own interminable chase scene(s), but with Sean Connery to add weight).

It is sad to see Spielberg reduced to merely another Hollywood hack, action director.  Too bad.  Go back and review the Spielberg movies that get a 100 rating:  "Jaws", "E.T., the Estraterrestial", "Raiders of the Lost Ark").  Those movies had magic.  This movie has little.  (Yes, Spielberg has alaso had a later incarnation as a "serioius" filmmaker with "Schindler's List" and "Saving Private Ryan", but in the process he seems to have lost his way in making "popular" movies, AND has not made a really good movie of any kind since those two--George Lucas having descended even further with his last "Star Wars" trilogy).

P.S.  In the first version of this review I referred to Cate Blanchett as playing a NAZI.  She actually plays a Communist heading a KGB team.  There is little distinction, however, between the Nazi storm troopers in "Iindiana Jones and the Last Crusade" and the Communist storm troopers in this movie.  Of course, in real life, there was also little distinction.  The Evil Empire of the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany were run by the same kind fo murderous thugs.   This movie makes very little point of the bad guys being RUSSIAN.  They could just as easily have been neo-Nazis.   There is the (rather impressive, if unbelievable) opening sequence involving a nuclear test, and perhaps a passing reference or two to Cold War parnoia.  But this movie has no time for any depth.

Thus, we come to Cate Blanchett my Freudian slip about her playing a Nazi.  That is how I saw her in the movie.  She is not identifiably Russian.  She wears black (at least very dark) and fights with a SWORD.  For all of the world, she plays the role like a cartoon Nazi dominatrix.  If you have ever seen, or even heard of, the exploitation series about Ilsa (a Nazi type dominatrix played by Dyanne Thorne), I thiink Cate Banchett will call that same image to mind--which may even happen if you have never heard of Ilsa.  There is just a NAZI "feel" to her character, and ver little of a RUSSIAN feel.  Here supposed "psychic" powers are never developed in the movie, and there is no depth to her character.  She really is playing a cartoon--but a cartoon with few of the RUSSIAN stereotypes of--say--Natasha of the Rocky and Bullwinkle series.   That is why I say she is wasted in the movie.  WHY hire a truly major actress to play a dominatrix bad girl that could be played by ANYONE.  The main reason seems to be to provoke the reaction:  "Isn't it neat how Cate Blanchett doesn't look like Cate Blanchett, and how well she made herself into a woman storm trooper"--even though no one could avoid the conclusion that the characeter is shallow and played in "over-the-top" cartoon fashion. 

Even the supposed obsession with "knowledge" that is featured in the climax, and in a few, passing references earlier, rings FALSE.  It is not a well developed character trait.  Cate Blanchett is playing "Ilsa", the dominatrix, more than she is playing some sort of Communist seeker after knowledge.   If there had been some sort of real interaction between Harrison Ford and the Blanchett character, maybe the character could have achieved a little depth.  As it is, the movie does not take TIME for any of that.  It is too interested in the continuous chase and the special effects.  You could almost write that as the EPITAPGH of most present Hollywood directors. 

Nope, it does not matter whether Cate Blanchett is plaing a Nazi or a Communitst.   She is playing a CARTOON.  The whole point seems to be the striking "image" she projects in this movie--unlike how you think of Cate Blanchett--rather than character development.  Yes, I know the movie is an ACTION movie, and not a character study, but that very dismissal of story and character is the core of the problem with most Hollywood movies today.   Peter Jackson seemed to be able to rise above the problem in the "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, only to fall into the same trap in "King Kong".   Unrelenting, nonsensical chases and action can be very BORING, no matter how impressive the special effects may be.  Alfred Hitchcock remains right that explosions do not create suspense.