It is difficult to imagine a film which would have satisfied the fans of the original three films, that would have matched up to the extra adventures of Indy dreamed up by two generations of young males in the intervening years (and not only young males, if that poster above an archaeological colleague’s bed is anything to go by.)
A Bit Old-Hat
Having said that, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull seems to two fail in two opposite directions at once. It is too much like the earlier films, with endless chase sequences, pale slightly unwholesome arch-villains, hordes of swarthy lesser foes, and a lot of good-hearted by-play with a hat. In short, there is little in the film’s texture which a sufficiently enthusiastic fan of the original films couldn’t have turned out, given a big enough budget and a good second unit director.
Close Encounters of the Archaeological Kind
On the other hand, in an attempt to add something dramatically new which would make audiences look at the franchise differently, the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull involves a sudden lurch into science-fiction territory, as it introduces a storyline which mashes together the X-Files, Prometheus, and Oannes. It’s a bold move, but it’s also really rather dull: the plot was so bungled and illogical that the denouement failed to have much impact on the audience: either you’d guessed it by that stage, or you hadn’t. A twist should be both completely shocking and entirely logical, the audience should shout (or at least think) “What? Of course! Why didn’t I see that all along?” With the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the dominant feeling was “Ok, that’s more or less weird. Where do we go from here?”
There are some enjoyable moments in the film: the fight between the jocks and the greasers, the motorcycle chase through the university, the gag with the fridge and the nuclear explosion (which is made more funny because it’s almost convincing until you realise the logical flaw.) Unfortunately, they’re all funnier as ideas than as parts of this film – too often the audience find themselves enjoying the notion behind what’s happening on screen. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull accidentally writes its own epitaph early on, when Harrison Ford's ageing Indy jumps onto a moving jeep and nearly misses, complaining “Damn, I thought that was closer.” It’s a great line, but it’s ruined by the clumsy timing, so that what should have come off as self-deprecating wit becomes an all too accurate critique of the film. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull feels like a series of near-misses.
Jem Bloomfield - Jem Bloomfield was educated at the universities of Oxford and Exeter, and is currently working on a PhD on Webster's revenge tragedy "The ...
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