May 30, 2008 09:36 AM
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(Updated Apr 09, 2009 03:58 AM)
The ‘Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’, the fourth installment of the Indiana Jones franchise, does manage to leave you asking for more.
If that sounds like a compliment, unfortunately it is not meant to be one. It is just an asteism, to say that if the pattern were to repeat itself, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas might get the fifth one right, just like how they did with the other odd numbered episodes, so far. Having said that, the much vaunted revival, and a rather bonus of an episode, coming as it does after 27 years of the first one and 19 years after the last one, doesn’t necessarily disappoint you in the departments of its core strengths i.e. action, special effects, and the affability of its hero. In fact, if you can manage to stay awake and stay singularly focused on them, amidst all the yawning that this murky tale of lost antiques is very likely to lull you into, you do get wowed. First, by the fine display of slick effects that are perhaps among the best that Hollywood has to offer. And second, by the derring-do of its protagonist - the aging, but rather graceful, professor. He dons the fedora and grabs the bull whip with the same elan as he did before.
As was the case with the Lost Ark in the first episode and the Holy Grail in the third episode, a good Indiana Jones story is a clever adaptation built around a popular myth which also happens to be about an archeological pursuit that one could relate to. Those storylines were mere pretexts, but they served as lively façades to pack a punch behind them, of a series of well executed stunts. The fact that the stunts were very meticulously crafted with period(1930-40’s) artifacts such as the trucks, horses, motorcycles, boats, war planes, and zeppelins gave them a distinct appeal that reflects the ambient look and entertainment value. When the action paused, the stories took over and held enough interest to lend purpose to the professor’s missions, as he wandered off from the classroom into the real world of archeology, complete with its adventurous and spooky sites of ancient history, and the band of international villains. But such was not the case with the extra cheesy ‘made-up myth’ of the Sankara Stone in the second episode. Its storyline was rather dark and sinister, and bordered on being very low grade horror than anything remotely connected with archeology. It had the usual special effects but the macabre premise robbed them of their appeal. In some ways, the new episode revists certain elements of the terrible muddle that part #2 was.
The theme of a ‘kingdom of crystal skull’ does sound quite hokey, but it happens to be not so made up after all. Still, the storyline they have developed around that basic premise is rather inelegant at best and very flat-footed for the most part. The skulls are a loose reference to a reportedly legitimate legend about how 13 crystal skulls, which date back to the Aztec period(of more than 500 years ago), have to be reunited by 2012 to avoid doomsday. As if that is not weird enough, our storywriters go a few steps further to bring in aliens and UFO crashes from Roswell, New Mexico to link the skulls to extraterrestrial life forms. The villains come in the form of a Russian military team that infiltrates a US nuclear test site, looking for these remains that are supposed to hold, whatelse but, some great psychic powers. This is all happening in 1957 in Nevada, and if we left matters there, we wouldn’t have any ancient sites, do we? So, off we go to Peru for some Mayan temples. And, while we are in South America we also get on some amphibian vehicles riding through the rainforests and waterfalls. Thus goes the ‘make it up as you go along’ script, hopping across multiple previous projects, of its director and the directorial work of its executive producer, stealing and rehashing highly incongruent ideas and effects from Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Wars, Jurassic Park etc. As an additional measure, a nuclear blast is thrown in, which is as preposterous as it is brilliantly crafted.
Harrison Ford is truly the saving grace of this project, and his whip-cracking performance lifts above most of the interminable mess that the story and script dump his character into. Karen Allen’s return, as Marion Ravenwood from the first episode, and her reunion with Indy is a nice welcome and refreshing change. She doesn’t gulp in shooters like she did in Lost Ark, but she is as sprightly as ever. Shia LaBeouf as their son is passable, but between him and his role they hold little or no promise to set the stage for ‘Junior Jones’ to be the central character, going forward, if at all. Seasoned Australian actress Cate Blanchett is miscast as the Russian colonel Irina, the villain of the story. The role and the tog out are very unflattering and make her look unintentionally comic. For a few initial minutes she does sound entertaining with her ‘RRRRussian’ accent but she quickly starts losing her ‘grrrip’ over it, and that too only long after we start losing our ‘interrrest’ in her character and her performance. Hence she ends up looking like just a nuisance, for the most part.
The blame for the overly messy and clearly soporific story/script goes to David Koepp(whose involvement should explain the ‘Jurassic Park’ look of some of the action scenes), Jeff Nathanson(whose ‘Catch me if you can’ and ‘The Terminal’ were equally stale), and George Lucas(for whom storywriting is just the wrong skill to export from his ‘Star Wars’ projects).
John Williams’ enthralling title score is all there in its many different moods and scales as the complementing force behind each of the action scenes.
Camera, by Janusz Zygmunt Kaminski a two time Oscar winner who has been on almost all of Spielberg’s projects, and special effects, by Pablo Helman, are simply outstanding.
Executive producer George Lucas and director Steven Spielberg, have the brought the right energy and efforts to bear, but they have not paid attention to the tastefulness needed. It is recommended only for those who like the franchise bad enough to not want to miss it. It does reward such crowd. And sincerely so.
