'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull'
reviewed by Donna Scott

Any film directed by Steven Spielberg, with a screenplay co-written by George Lucas would surely have enough Hollywood glitz about it to make it not just the blockbuster film for this summer, but arguably a contender for the decade. Factor in those two magical words ‘Indiana’ and ‘Jones’, and all bets are surely off. Spielberg and Lucas’s previous collaborations under this franchise have given us three of the biggest films of the eighties, still ranked in the top 150 biggest grossing box-office sales of all time (source IMDB).

I cannot recall any film being as hotly anticipated in recent years: the showing I went to see was sold out, but I managed to grab one of the few remaining tickets for the showing after that. A chap sitting next to me likened the buzz to when Star Wars came out: ‘You know, the first one,’ he qualified. I hoped he meant Episode IV, since a comparison with The Phantom Menace would not have augured well for the film in my book. Now who wrote that, again…?

The only reservations I had heard about the film prior to its release concerned Harrison Ford’s ability to step back into the all-action hero’s desert boots, when someone of his age might more believably don a pair of comfy slippers. True, Ford is sixty-five, and nineteen years have indeed passed since he last played the intrepid archaeologist, but I was optimistic: I recalled that Ford had insisted on doing a lot of his own stunts for the first three films and rather suspected that he was probably still fit enough to keep the action convincing… and Hollywood magic would help make the rest plausible. Besides, I was keen to see what a more mature Indy would be like, and how his world would have changed.

And how it has changed. When we last met Indy, World War II was still raging and the baddies were the Nazis. Now, it is 1957 and the major threat to world peace comes from the Cold War between the West and the Soviet Union. So of course the baddies are now the Russians. Our hero finds himself embroiled in a Soviet plot to recover extra-terrestrial remains from Area 51, and must pit himself against the vaguely psychic KGB colonel, Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett), who is searching for secrets that will empower the Soviet Union to crush the West.

Indy manages to evade the Russians, only to find himself trapped in a model town in the middle of the desert, just as the siren sounds for a nuclear test near the site. An ingenious and fantastical escape later (with the help of a lead-lined fridge), Indy returns home to reprise his relatively mundane teaching post in Marshall College – except that the board have heard how he has been under FBI investigation due to his association with a Soviet agent, George ‘Mac’ Machale (Ray Winstone), and have pressured the dean, Charles Stanforth (Jim Broadbent), into firing him. Stanforth has managed to persuade them to give Indy a leave of absence instead, but Indy is about to leave town when he is approached by a young man called Mutt (Shia LaBeouf).

Mutt reveals himself to be the son of Indy’s old flame Marion Ravenwood (a character first seen in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, played once more by Karen Allen), who has gone looking for Indy’s old colleague, John Oxley (John Hurt), who has disappeared while looking for a crystal skull. Marion has sent her son instructions to find Indy, so, together they follow the trail to Peru.

The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull offers us pure adventure in the vein that we have come to know and expect from the franchise. All the usual props and plot devices are there, from the instantly recognisable silhouette of Indy in his fedora to his inventive and skilful use of the bullwhip, and from the fight scenes that take place on moving vehicles to the obligatory scenes with deadly beasties. In using these, Spielberg does more than give a nod to the previous films, he firmly fixes a framework within which he attempts to give the cinemagoers what they expect, plus a little more.

What we get is an adventure hero whose moral convictions seem to be a little less grey than they once were. He may formerly have been a materialist, grabbing ancient artefacts for their monetary value, hooked on the adventure, cocky about his ability to get past booby traps, but his adventures have shown him the darker side of humanity, and that supernatural forces exist, and he has learned – and saved the world from the Nazis. Twice.

When we left Indiana in The Last Crusade, he had also just learned how to get along with his father. We join him in The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull just as Jones Sr. has passed away, and when familial relationships are more important to him than ever. Cue Mutt Williams.

It is no real surprise that Mutt turns out to be Indy’s son. First of all, there’s the clue in the name (Indiana named himself after the dog, after all). But from LaBeouf’s first appearance on screen, riding a motorbike, dressed like a young Marlon Brando, he comes across as a young man trying on a persona, and gets to mimic others throughout the film, at one point, swinging on jungle vines like Tarzan – but he doesn’t get to try on Indy’s hat, so it’s made clear that he is not taking over Indy’s role: there is only one Indiana Jones.

LaBeouf’s presence in this film is one of its strengths. Mutt is crucial for anchoring the film to the 1950s, with his contemporary teenager’s style, challenging Indy for being out of step with the times. He is a foil to Indiana, challenging the older man to prove himself time and time again. LaBeouf’s involvement enables us to see that Ford is still very capable of taking part in high-adrenalin action scenes, taking some of the pressure off the older actor at the same time.