"Indiana Jones" Movie Review

(Caution, this post contains lots of spoilers.)

Well, the long wait is finally over, and at last we get to see Indy in action again after a long, long time. Supposedly, the film was delayed years until Lucas and Spielberg settled on the right script...and while the script they settled on is good, it's not as great as one might have hoped.

Never the less, seeing Harrison Ford put the jacket and fedora on and swing into action cannot be a bad thing, not even if Ford was 75 and not 65 years old, as he is here. Indy, regardless of age, is a fun guy to hang out with.

Nazis have been replaced with Commies, this being set in 1957, and director Spielberg gets all sorts of nineteen-fifties touchstones to play with, the best being Indy finding himself in an all-American suburban neighborhood, built to be destroyed by an atomic bomb test. Lucas, who gets story credit, reverts back to his "American Graffiti" days with an opening homage to daredevil hotrodders in (what else?) a '32 Ford. (Damn, I forgot to look at the license plate; I wonder if the letters THX and 138 appear as they do on the '32 Ford in "Graffiti".)

Our baddest of the baddies this time is a tall, boot jacked female Russian who looks one part dominatrix and one part Natasha from "Rocky and Bullwinkle". We wonder if they're saving Boris for the sequel.

Yes, sequel. Or sequels. This whole movie seems to exist to build a new franchise around (surprise) the son Indy didn't know he had, a Marlon-Brando-In-The-Wild-One clone named "Mutt". Indy fans will get the joke; Indiana was the name of the family dog, so here comes another mutt to follow him. This idea of expanding the franchise was tried before; anyone remember the TV series based on Indy's youth?

Not only have they built the movie around future sequels, they've written-in the theme for a revised Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. It's time to rip out those Jeeps from the original and replace them with amphibious "Ducks". Everybody at Disneyland loves waterfalls, don't you know?

I guess I should mention the plot. The Ruskies force our hero to help them find a crystal skull which will lead them, supposedly, to incredible power. Indy should just have pointed out the Ark of the Covenant while in the warehouse and been done with it.

Which leads me to another observation/complaint. Spielberg (gasp!) screws up repeatedly by letting us know too much ahead of time. Far before we need to realize that, by God, the baddies have overtaken not just any desert military installation, but Area 51, we get the punch line: Aliens will be involved. But Spielberg confuses his audience by having the Russians search the warehouse for an item Indy found 10 years before. "But wait," I'm thinking, "We know what's in this warehouse; this is where the Feds stashed the Lost Ark; and it's been more than 10 years since Indy found it, so shouldn't they be looking for flying saucers and not some box, since this is Area 51?" and by that time I've become hopelessly confused.

Cut to the chase. And they do. Lots of times. Long, long chases filled with obvious CGI, followed by lots and lots of exposition as to why everyone is doing whatever it is they're supposed to be doing. Can't Indiana Jones be Indiana Jones, and, to quote a famous line from "Raiders of the Lost Ark", make it up as (he) goes along?

Indy must share action time with Mutt, played by somebody I've never heard of and who does not look particularly memorable. When Lucas/Spielberg have Mutt swing through the trees, Tarzan style, I uttered something out loud that I thought I'd never say in any of their movies: "Oh, please..." Yes, this is "Indiana Jones", but my suspension of disbelief well, shall we say, vapor locked, right then and there.

I take back that line about never before having disbelieved. I remember the first time Darth Vader walked onto the screen and I had to stop myself from giggling. Maybe if they'd have had Indy in his younger days do the Tarzan trick? Yes, it is a tribute to Tarzan, one of the greatest movie serials of all time... but, pleeease!

This is not to say I don't like the movie, I do. I haven't even mentioned some of the best parts; the best of the best being Karen Allen reprising her role as Marion Ravenwood. I would have traded a bunch of fist fights and gun battles to have had more Indy and Marion on screen together, doing what they do best -- argue.

You've got to love the reference to Indy's fear of snakes, or the several to his father, played with such comic perfection by Sean Connery in the third film. And don't forget the gophers, for gosh sake. I loved the gophers.

So...pretending to be my long lost hero and movie critic, Gene Siskel, I give the movie a "thumbs up" but only 3 stars out of 5. It's third on my list of the four Indiana Jones adventures, behind the original, and the terrific third movie, with Connery. But, it's certainly the best Indy we've had in, what 18 years, so who cares?