![]() ![]() There was a chance here to show Indy getting smacked by time and the perils of intimacy and commitment. Total props go to the superior stunt work: Watch that three-tier waterfall! Catch that duel between Mutt and Irina on two speeding jeeps! And, oh, that army of man-eating ants! But I’d trade all the paranormal mumbo-jumbo and cutesy computer-generated prairie dogs for scenes that connected the characters on a human level. ![]() Some have hinted that Mutt might be Indy’s son. It’s a kick seeing Karen Allen return as Marion Ravenwood, Mutt’s mom and Indy’s love in Raiders. Indy’s hots are reserved for an old flame. I kept waiting for Indy to spark with Cate Blanchett as Russian military scientist Irina Spalko, but the great Cate is stuck in a one-note-villain role with an accent that conjures up Rocky and Bullwinkle more than the desired red menace. “What are you, like, 80?” asks Mutt, an insult he has to eat after a motorcycle chase that shows Gramps still has what it takes. Johnny Hardwick, Voice of Conspiracy Nut Dale Gribble on 'King of the Hill,' Dead at 64įord, 65 and in fine, feisty fettle, has a ball mixing it up with Shia LaBeouf, who is terrific as Mutt, the biker kid who joins Indy on a mission to find the Crystal dildo, or whatever the hell it is. By midpoint, the movie starts to play like National Treasuremeets The X-Files, with a touch of The Goonies, and I don’t mean any of these comparisons as a compliment. What’s worse is that after a smashing opener involving Indy getting captured by Russians in Nevada, circa 1957, the film starts piling on atomic subplots. Everything looks raided from the lost ark of the three previous Indy hits. The dark side is that after 19 years of wrangling between Spielberg and Lucas - in a mind-meld with writer David Koepp to craft just the right script for Indy 4 - they came up with this mess. The good news is that Harrison Ford can still rock a fedora and a bullwhip like nobody’s business as the globe-trotting archaeologist. And instead of the elegiac tone that lifted 1989’s presumptive valedictory, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, director Steven Spielberg and producer George Lucas have gotten sillier. Crystal Skull is hit-and-miss like the clunky 1984 sequel, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Sure, I wanted Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull to be as classically adventurous as Raiders of the Lost Ark, which kicked off the Indy saga in 1981. Roger Ebert’s thumb loved it, but a New York Times critic said, “I was bored out of my mind.” Holy schizo! Now that the fourth chapter in the Indiana Jones series has opened and we can see beyond the box-office gold rush, the truth emerges between the extremes, you know, the place where disappointment eats at your expectations. ![]()
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