May Include Spoilers (...and nuts)With something as big as Indy it's never going to be possible to please all of the people all of the time. This is nothing new to me as a Doctor Who fan, ever since the show came back there have always been many people holding Russell T Davies up as the man who has single-handedly destroyed the show they were brought up with. George Lucas has already, and quite rightly had a lot of similar flack for the Star Wars prequel fiasco, so has he done it all over again?
Well, no, he hasn't because it's not written by him, and it has the reliable figures of Harrison Ford and Steven Spielberg doing exactly what they do best. Of course, there was a worry around ten minutes in after a barnstorming chase through Area 51 (Yes, you read that right, but more on this later...) and a sadly underused model village nuclear test site that upon being accused of collaborating with those damned Ruskies (No more Nazis, might be deemed offensive after Schindlers and let's face facts, it's 19 years after Crusade!) that much like Phantom Menace we would be treated to long protracted scenes of Indy put on trial by McCarthy. Thankfully not, though the witch hunt angle did give us some rather nice commentary on todays society which didn't seem too forced at all. So after tracking down the Ark of the Covenant, the Holy Grail and whatever the fuck it is he's after in Temple of Doom what's Indy looking for this time? He has to return the Crystal Skull found by an old friend (Played by a woefully underused John Hurt.) to the temple, of course I'd known this about 5 minutes before the bloody BBFC rating came onscreen thanks to a spoilery Lego advert. Said Skull's resting just so happens to be in the fabled City of Lost Gold, of which this blogger recently wrote an essay on how it had never existed and became a justification for what was practically ethnic cleansing. So it was kind of fun to see how Indy handled it, by practically doing it all over again, the Russians killing all of the tribesfolk in their search for the city...there's social commentary for you.
Now this is where everyone seems to fall out, and if you've read this far without seeing the film I advise to bugger off and see it because I'm about to talk at length about the ending of the film. Right after this picture of the very sexy Cate Blanchett. And that's something I never thought I'd say, having never been a big fan of her in films. I think it's something to do with the communist badass character she was playing and that bit where she crushes an ant with her thighs...blimey.
I've got a weapon you can....I've already done that gag this week.
So then, the Crystal Skull itself. Previous Indy movies have concerned themselves with mythical and religious imagery though I would argue that Crusade is the only one to explicitly state this with the Ark and its power being much more ambiguous. This time, they've gone for a scientific approach, namely life on other planets. Like Raiders I would have preferred this to be a bit more ambiguous, did the aliens really need to come to life and fly off in their flying saucer? I really don't think so, and it did make the ending to the film seem a little bit ridiculous. That said, I think this was exactly the right time to look beyond the myths of our own world and look beyond the stars. At the beginning of the film Indy has lost best friend Marcus and his father and is getting on a little bit himself, he clearly still harbours feelings for lost love Marion. If this is all there is, is that not the most depressing thing in the world? Isn't it somehow right that we should comfort ourselves with the fact we're not alone in the universe? A lot of people have argued that you can't have this religious and scientific imagery hand in hand in a series, I disagree somewhat and I think Crystal Skull handles it pretty well, with a couple of oversights including that flying saucer.
All in all, it's the most fun I've had in the cinema in a long long time, unashamedly populist entertainment with a wafer thin story and some cracking action set pieces. Shia LeBouef didn't annoy me nearly as much as I thought he would either, and the suggestion at the end that he's to take over the franchise when he picks up the hat, ala young Indy in Crusade before having it snatched off him by old Indy made me chuckle. Sadly the ending wasn't as definitive as Last Crusade and I hope this means we're getting another film because I'd gladly be first in line for another crack of the whip. (Knew I could get a whip gag in here somewhere!)
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