All the best and worst parts of a family reunion
Indiana Jones is like your favorite bachelor uncle.
He's this cool older guy who travels around and does fun stuff and every few years he pops into your life and takes you to Disneyland or a concert or the toy store or something. You grow up having great memories of all the times you had with him as a kid. Then you see him at a family reunion when you're an adult. You still love your uncle but he's older now and you realize that he's not quite so cool anymore. He's not as energetic and doesn't do as many cool things. You wonder why he hasn't settled down and gotten married or had kids or got a real job.
It's good to see him and you love him but this isn't how you want to remember him, you want to remember him as the fun young dude you used to hang out with.
Not the old boring version!
It's great to see Indy back in action again and there's a lot of fun to be had in this film. I love the cafe scene and the ensuing motorcycle chase. It's a real chase with real stunts, like in the old flicks. It's fun and it seems actually dangerous! I enjoy hearing about Indy's war record in World War II, fleshing out what happens between LC and CS. I like the stuff with the Nasca lines and learning the history about Oreana. The scenes of Indy and Mutt walking through the town talking about Pancho Villa are fun and it's nice to hear the movies call back to the TV series. I like the dude getting pulled into the ant hole. CREEPY. The opening sequence is okay. I don't mind the refrigerator thing. It's still more believable than the power of god coming out of an ark to melt people's faces. I don't even mind the alien stuff. It makes sense in the context of the film. The original took place in the 1930s when Nazis were the pulp cinema bad guys. This takes place in the 1950s when space aliens and communists were the bad guys. It works. Mutt's fine too. That first shot of him on the motorcycle is super cool. Perfectly captures the era. Love it. His line "what're you like 80?" is hilarious. I like the contrast between 50s kid and crusty older Indy. It works. I think we had reached a LaBeouf saturation point as a culture at that point in time. I think his character will earn it's share of admirers over time. Don't even really care about Mutt swinging with the Monkeys. The Indy flicks owe a lot to Burroughs' Tarzan novels. It's a little reference. It's FINE. Don't worry about it. Calm down people. It's a movie. You're adults.
The REAL problem with Crystal Skull is the overuse of special effects. The original had great stunts. Old timey stunts. Tricks stolen from old westerns. There were a few key, strategic moments where effects were used and used well. Matte paintings fleshed out some of the environments. Model work was used to blow up tanks and planes and stuff. There was even a bit of bluescreen for some of the airplane scenes and such. But the stunts were the star. Most of the stunts here are done on bluescreen, which is especially egregious in the chase sequence through the jungle. They're trying to ape the truck chase in Raiders and the tank chase in Last Crusade. Those scenes were awesome because they took some stuntmen and vehicles out to the desert to beat the heck out of each other and jumped off horses and stuff. It's great! It felt dangerous because, like, it kindof was. That's an actual dude crawling under the moving truck with his whip. That's a real guy jumping off a real horse on a real road onto a real car. It's cool! The only time we see special effects is at the end when vehicles fly off cliffs. Raiders uses a matte, Crusade uses a little model. It looks kindof dumb but it's charming in an old-time serial way. There's ZERO danger in the chase at the end of Crystal Skull. NONE. They're all in a studio! What could possibly happen? Nothing. No tension, no drama, no interest. Doesn't work. Why? I guess they're competing with the Mummy movies or whatever. So what! Casino Royale had real fights with real guys and that was a huge hit! Fast and the Furious movies take real cars out to the desert and have people hop around. It can work for Indy too!
Other than better stunts, what would have saved this movie? Honestly? Sean friggin' Connery. Three generations of Joneses at it on one adventure. Would have been great. Can't fault the filmmakers for trying. Connery's a stubborn (and rich) dude.
Could/should this have been better? Absolutely. Is it as good as Raiders or Crusade? Ummm...NO. Is it as good as Doom? Hate to break it to you. YES. It is. Like on every measurable level, this is a WAY better movie. Am I glad this came out? Yes! If for no other reason than we finally got some more freaking Indiana Jones action figures.
So back to the family reunion. It's good to see Indy back in action. Good to see Marion too. But yeah, instead of an adventure with your cool uncle, we're now on an adventure with your parents. I guess that's lame. But you know what? I like hanging out with my parents. I even saw this movie with them. We had a fun time. It brought me back to when we all saw Last Crusade together on opening day when I was a boy. I don't look forward to getting old. But I think that when I do, I'll like this movie a lot more. It's about a guy who's probably too old to save the day but he does it anyway. I like that message.
Raiders of the Lost Ark is probably the most perfect adventure film of all time. Last Crusade, for my money, is one of the most fun and entertaining flicks ever created, flawed though it might be. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is passable family entertainment whose main flaw is that it isn't what everyone thought it should be.