Movie No.10: "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull"

My first reaction after seeing the new Indiana Jones movie: What the @#$@#$?

And I'm actually not talking about the rather out there plot. I'm talking about just how sloppy some parts of it were. Granted there were also moments where you were reminded just how talented the people involved were, but there were too many moments that assaulted my suspension of disbelief with an Uzi, and the film never really achieved a level of consistency to make up for it.

To account for the character's aging, the plot has been moved up about 20 years, eschewing Nazism and religious artifacts for Communists and a more, well, sci-fi related plot. In the 20 intervening years, Indy has apparently added war hero and occasional spy to his previous list of job titles (archaeologist, adventurer, academic). He's been kidnapped and taken to a certain well-known and mysterious military "area" by a group of Soviets led by the somewhat psychic Col. Dr. Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett with a black bob) to find an artifact in the storage facility that Indy had helped examine (let's just say the town of Roswell is mentioned).

After a harrowing (and in one case eye-rollingly ludicrous) escape, a young greaser named Mutt Williams (Shia LeBeouf) comes looking for Indy, saying his mother had told him to contact him after she and his pseudo-stepdad, a onetime friend of Indy's were kidnapped after Indy's friend had gone in search of the fabled Crystal Skull.

Some of the things that you'd expect from an Indiana Jones movie are still there. The action sequences still mostly carry the same level of excitement. Ford, though visibly aged, still wears the character well, and his easy delivery of some of the movie's snarkier lines helps add some intentional laughs to the proceedings, especially after he meets back up with "Raiders of the Lost Ark" flame Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen). Blanchett also is a nice addition to the cast. Her character is occasionally a bit over the top, but the Oscar winner makes her work.

The problem is several sequences are so jaw-droppingly ridiculous (the refrigerator scene, the monkey scene and the "It drops three times" scene, among others) that they kill any momentum the film had. This is especially bad when they seem to, without fail, come immediately after the film's strongest scenes. Some parts feel overly drawn out. Others feel rushed. Overall it just doesn't really come together all that well. It's not an awful film, but it sure as heck ain't "Raiders of the Lost Ark" either.

D+

If you'll notice I also added "In the Valley of Elah" (better than I expected) and "Southland Tales" to the list. "Southland Tales" is a bizarre one. I simultaneously think I have it rated too high and too low. It has moments of a fever-dream type brilliance, but its plot also manages to twist and turn its way into utter incoherence. Let's just say this is a film that quotes liberally from the Book of Revelations, has Sarah Michelle Gellar's character hosting a TV show that can perhaps best be described as the McLaughlin Group if it were made up entirely of ditsy female porn stars, and has a couple of characters utter a variation of the line "I'm a pimp, and pimps don't commit suicide."