After the release of Raider of the Lost Ark in 1981 Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones became a household name, throughout the eighties (and the early nineties with the barely remembered ‘Young Indiana Jones’ series) the original team behind the bullwhip and fedora, Steven Spielberg directing and George Lucas providing the story and production, created a phenomenon out of the inventive storylines and quirky characters. So steeped in the collective consciousness of the film going masses was the action hero archaeologist that when a fourth film was announced for release in 2008 I found myself in a fervour of nostalgia. The early trailers were extraordinarily well judged and many, after comments made by the filmmakers that it would indeed stay true to the original films, saw this to be the ode to many people’s, including my own, childhood experiences of fabulous action cinema.
What happened then is history. Despite many critics views to the contrary a large proportion of those who watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull hated the film: none more influential than Matt Stone and Trey Parker, creators of South Park, who tore into the film and its creators for figuratively (though not quite so figurative within the episode in question: “The China Problem”) ‘raping’ the character of Indiana Jones. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back: many of those who had been straining through their nostalgia goggles when watching the new movie had again been given an opinion by South Park so that they didn’t have to formulate their own. The internet backlash was immense, one scene in particular received a large amount of ridicule, and “Nuking the Fridge” became somewhat of a byword for when a series reaches a point of absurdity similar to the infamous “Jumping the Shark” sequence in Happy Days. But was this scene any more ridiculous than the scene in The Temple of Doom where the characters are treated to ‘chilled monkey brains’, a rather misjudged joke on the excesses of Indian cuisine? Or the scene in The Last Crusade where Henry Jones Sr. (played by Sean Connery) takes down a Messerschmitt by scaring birds into its path?
The fact is that the creators of the original series took a gamble, and it failed. With a series so heavily entrenched in fandom almost any sequel, so late in its arrival, would be doomed to a disappointing reaction from fans. The fact is that none of the sequels stand up to the first film, the pacing, setting, characters, narrative and dialog were almost utterly perfect; and I still say that Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of the best, if not the best, action film ever made. And like many film series, the sequels get steadily worse.
After the triumph of Raiders, Temple tried something different. A new setting, religion, region and cast were introduced, and the film’s opening sequence tells the audience (though many fail to notice it) that the film is in fact a prequel, taking place before the events of Raiders. More comic elements were introduced, in the shape of Chinese pickpocket ‘Short-Round’ and ‘Willie’ Scott, and the scarier elements of the film took an even darker tone too; particularly in the scene where a man’s heart is ripped from his chest, which forced American distributors to rethink their classification guide. Watching again, much of the comedy works very well, the scene where Willie and Indiana fight a sexual war between their two rooms in the palace is a guilty pleasure, and despite its departure in tone, the slapstick elements are generally handled well. But already the seeds were sown for Crystal Skull; the moments with enslaved children are hair-pullingly sentimental (something which Spielberg is guilty of in his films time and time again), and as mentioned before the departure in tone from the first is a little jarring, with many feeling that the return of an ancient evil cult did not strike the right chord with western audiences in quite the same way that the Ark of the Covenant did.
The third film of the original trilogy supposedly took the film back to its roots, bringing Judeo-Christian mythology again to the forefront, and giving the Nazi party again an antagonistic role. The return of the Nazis gives the film the feel of the first, which is pleasing, but decisions were made regarding the characters that made the third by far the worst of the original three. Both Sallah and Brody, intellectual and steadfast, witty and charming, became bumbling oafish characters in Crusade, removing much of the natural comedy from their intellectual debates with Indiana and replacing it with gags about falling over, and walking stupidly, or acting like idiots. Far from happy that the characters that I loved from the first film returned I am glad that they did not return for the fourth. The rest of the cast is on the whole pitch-perfect however, with Sean Connery as an excellent Henry Jones Sr. and Alison Doody as by far the most attractive character in possibly any film ever as Dr. Elsa Schneider.
In many ways Crystal Skull is a fitting epitaph for the character of Indiana Jones. The storytelling is pacey, if a little sketchy, and there are some genuinely fantastic moments that feel entirely true to the original spirit of the series, in particular the fight in the diner, which had a Temple-esque slapstick quality to it, and the resultant motorbike chase which feels real and exciting, a band apart from many CGI action scenes in modern movies where you feel distanced from the action because of the computer game aesthetics. The opening scene is also excellent, in keeping with the quasi-dance routine in Temple and the lovingly crafted origin scene with the late River Phoenix in Crusade. There a lot of things right with Crystal Skull, and even the supporting cast, including Shia LaBeouf whom I will never forgive for starring in Transformers 2, do an admirable job of keeping everything as we remembered it. But, as stressed by many fans upon the film’s release, Crystal Skull does have its myriad problems. The film seems to be obsessed with small, obviously CGI, animals, and keeps showing them us for no reason. In one particularly ham-fisted scene Mutt (Laboobillybuff or however you spell it) swings through the jungle with hundreds of badly rendered CGI monkeys. Why is this scene there? Many have chosen to see this as the unmistakable sweaty fingerprints of Mr George Lucas who, unsatisfied with filling the awful Star Wars prequels with computer generated clutter, went back and destroyed his original films with stupid, unending computer idiocy. And this may be so, but the fact of the matter is: is it really any worse than the scene where the children break out of the mines in Temple and overpower the guards, running back the awaiting arms of their parents? Or the scene where Indy runs into an unexpected meeting with Adolf Hitler himself in Crusade? Probably. But my point is that the original trilogy, bar the first, had just as much silliness as Crystal Skull, if not more; and many people forget this simple fact perhaps because of their attachment to the films. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is the worst of the series, but not by much, the film has a lot to like, but the direction it chose did not please fans and, being one of those fans myself, I found the film to be a lot more enjoyable and in keeping with the series’ tone once I had torn the rose-tinted spectacles from my eyes.
By Alastair
(P.S. I don’t care about the aliens thing, they aren’t real either so what’s the problem?)
