Indiana Jones and the
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Film Commentary by Paul Myrvold

So Indiana Jones has left the Nazis and World War II behind. Now he’s a graying tenured professor, a fit sixty-something, who can still wear a brown fedora, sling a whip like Lash La Rue and, when push really comes shove, trade blows like a bare-knuckle brawler. The Indy we love lives!
Like thousands of others across the country, I went to an early screening of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on the day of release. The pre-opening hype was wrapped in just enough Spielbergian mystery to tantalize. Some pre-release plot details got leaked. Could there be Roswell space alien theme? Turns out, yes…sort of. There was the great news that Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood, the best of Indy’s loves, is back and lovely at 56. A columnist told us that Harrison Ford is buff and can still do his own stunts with a credibility no blue screen hi-jinks can match. And just the photo of Cate Blanchett, maliciously sensuous and cold as ice as Indy’s commie nemesis, got my motor running.
It almost doesn’t matter that the plot involves an ancient pre-Columbian crystal skull that becomes the coveted object of competition between All-American Jones and the evil Stalinist Empire. The chase is all, leading us from Nevada to Yale to the Nazca plains of Peru then down the Amazon to the thrilling conclusion. This is an action flick. Motorcycle chases, car chases, jungle chases including vine swinging and waterfall plunging – all at breakneck speed, virtually non-stop, with just a few breathers for a Blanchett close up or a Karen Allen wisecrack.
Shia LaBeouf turns up as Marion’s son, a smart-mouthed biker who pulls up on a Harley decked out like a Brando-Johnny ready to rock and roll Hollister. John Hurt, looking a little like old Ben Gunn from Treasure Island, hams it up delightfully as Professor Oxley, a scholar driven barmy by too much psychic input. And the always-terrific Ray Winstone as Indy’s on-again, off-again friend and associate George “Mac” McHale makes a loveable, hateful, spindizzy subordinate villain.
There are a myriad of period details, what you would expect from a George Lucas/Steven Spielberg collaboration. Director Spielberg has loaded the film with the signs and symbols of the Fifties. Elvis sings us into the opening scene as an army convoy turns past the Atomic Café. Dr. Jones spits out “I like Ike” as a venomous retort to a Red thug. And there’s a Kodak Brownie to record the significant ceremony that closes the show.
Spielberg is candid about his inspiration for all the Indian Jones films – cliff hanging Saturday serials of the 30s, westerns and action thrillers and now 1950s B movies. I can identify at least three tributes to movies of the Fifties. The Brando film, The Wild Ones I alluded to above. The Sci-Fi thriller Them concerned huge ants turned mutants from radioactivity Kingdom of the Crystal Skull boasts an extended scene with some very aggressive red ants, and Spielberg uses a ground level camera angle to made them look very large and very scary indeed. And not everyone will know that Spielberg lifted an idea whole from Land of the Pharaohs, a 1955 sword and sandal epic – the release of stopped up sand to move giant blocks of stone. It sealed a pharaoh’s pyramid then and moves some pretty hefty pillars now.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is all fun – laughs, action, spectacle and lots and lots of world class stunts.
Enjoy!

	Paul Myrvold has been reviewing films in Out & About country for over 17 years.