The Secret of the Wednesday’s Haul

Musing about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull earlier, I wondered if I was going to get another Raiders of the Lost Arc, a movie I love, or a Last Crusade, one I merely enjoy. Well, I guess the answer is that I’m going to prefer to remember the Indiana Jones movies as a trilogy and think that this was just a fan film.

The movie opens up appropriately enough with a nod and a wink towards the end of Raiders as some dirty communists (remember this is the 1950s– Nazis were so a decade ago) force Indiana Jones to search an isolated military warehouse for an artifact from his past. The opening sequences capture the adventure, danger and humor of the franchise with Indy and a Mac, his partner, seemingly against the world. We get to see Indy using his head as well as his whip to escape. And then, since this is a 1950s era film, we get a bit of the Red Scare as a couple of FBI agents wonder what Indy’s relationship to the communists really was. In this opening act, we get an idea of what Indy has been up to since we last saw him– war hero, spy and teacher. I’d love to hear more about how he was a war hero but for some reason, the movie just forgets that part conveniently so it can move on to the important stuff like Mutt.

Remember when the Brady Bunch introduced Cousin Oliver or Scooby Doo introduced Scrappy Doo? Well, that’s about what this is, a youthful presence introduced to fool a bunch of kids into really like this movie. Shia LeBeouf as Mutt was a retread of every touch Marlon Brando, James Dean and Henry Winkler character. And remember when Fonz jumped the shark? Well what took Happy Days seasons to accomplish is done in under two hours when we get a scene of Mutt (horrible, horrible name) swinging on vines through the Amazon with an army of monkeys trailing behind him. I half expected to hear Phil Collins playing in the background at this point.

Marion returns and that should have been a good thing. In Raiders, she was tough, no nonsense but had a soft, vulnerable part as well. Here she’s all just googly eyes for Indy. As soon as she appears on screen, she just bats her eyes, tries to have some clever yes-she-loves-him/no-she-doesn’t banter. Gone is the woman who drank Nepalese under the table during bar drinking contests and in her place we get a damsel in distress, only there to be rescued and make eyes at the leading actor.

And you know I could have handled most of this if it wasn’t for the stupid smirk that was on Harrison Ford’s face during most of the movie. Yes, he’s older. You know it. I know it. Harrison knows it. We’ve all moved on since The Last Crusade. But Harrison also knows how much he’s going to get paid and there’s this stupid little smirk that is constantly on his face. And I’m sure that the same one is on Lucas’s and Spielberg’s face as well. In the previous movies, it was good and fun that he was smirking at Nazis, at Marion or Sallah or whoever. That was part of his character. But this time, he’s smirking at the audience. The movie tries to be clever and amusing. Why couldn’t it just have been a good movie.

It’s how they treat these characters that really trouble me. Everything is precious and saccharine. From Indy to Marion to Mutt, the characters are just so special and delicate and two dimensional. They’re on screen to go from one joke to another. The danger is hardly ever real, especially the CGI danger. Killer ants? It’s a scene that makes the skin crawl but it’s no where near as real as the snakes, insects or rats of the previous movies.

I’ve seen Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull once and I feel like I never need to see it again. Well, except for the first act but I seem to be one of the few people who really enjoyed the first act.

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