Away From The Hype: INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL

Sometimes, a movie is released and the hype/controversy surrounding it is too much for the movie to get out from underneath. Sometimes this means we sit down in the cinema with expectations and preconceived notions that we can’t escape.

Away from the Hype is an ongoing series looking at some of these movies years away from their initial release to see if, without all of the window dressing of hype, expectation, and controversy, the movies are actually any good or not.

The Years and the Mileage

A tweet from Birth.Movies.Death caught my eye recently and got me thinking about the legacy of Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

The tweet piqued my interest because it is not often that a movie is so utterly dismissed out of hand, especially a movie in a franchise with such a loyal following. Consider the number of sequels that upon release were considered terrible but that have now been reappraised by critics and found to be better than we thought. Rocky V, Jurassic Park: The Lost World, and the Star Wars prequels are just some of the movies that now have die-hard defenders decades after they disappointed us at the theater.

However, even though it remade its budget seven times and has a 78% on Rotten Tomatoes (enough to be certified Fresh), Crystal Skull is considered a failure and not only a failure but an irredeemable one. But is it really that bad? Or is it just bad compared to its predecessors?

I saw it at the cinema when it first came out and enjoyed it, but a lot of that enjoyment is based on context. I saw it on my birthday with my mum after we had binged the previous three movies, and while I was home after being overseas for two years.

That was eleven years ago, and I haven’t watched it since, so let’s see how Crystal Skull stacks up.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

Full disclosure, I’m not a fan of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It is an angry, misanthropic movie full of darkness and violence that stands in stark contrast to Raiders’ sense of fun and adventure. I also find both sidekicks incredibly annoying.

The Indiana Jones I love is the globe-trotting adventurer who is a teacher and archaeologist first and an action hero sort of by accident. He solves problems with his brain first and his fists second. And don’t worry this isn’t going to turn into a #NotMyIndy campaign against Temple of Doom, I just want to get my tastes out there before I reveal that, yes, I really enjoyed rewatching Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Before I sat down and watched it, I read some of the stuff that was coming out around the time of the movie’s production and three things stuck out to me.

One was that George Lucas was involved in it. Keep in mind, when this movie looked to be getting made and writers were announced in the early 2000s, Lucas was deep into making his Star Wars prequel trilogy. The dislike of these movies at the time fell squarely about Lucas’ shoulders and his overabundance of CGI over character work. It is only in the last few years that people have started showing signs of getting over this and looking at the prequels in a fresh light.

Secondly, the rumours floating around the movie that Shia LaBeouf, fresh off of Transformers and known more for his Disney TV work, would be eventually replacing Jones in future movies. The idea that LaBeouf (or any other actor) would replace Ford is blasphemy in the eyes of the fans, so instantly LaBeouf’s character was viewed with suspicion/scorn.

And thirdly, during filming, the producers and Steven Spielberg stated many times that the movies would feature minimal CGI and focus on practical stunt work like the originals. However, the trailers showed that this wouldn’t completely be the case, and if any viewer just assumed that they were trailer money shots and Lucas’ penchant for overloading movies with CGI wasn’t going to effect Indy, they were quickly removed of this idea when the very first shot of the movie was a CG gopher burrowing out of a hole.

Now, a decade and change later, it is possible to watch this movie without those worries. We know about the CGI and Lucas’ influence on the story and visuals, and we know for damn sure that Shia LaBeouf is not the future of the Indiana Jones franchise. With those things gone, the only thing left to worry about is whether or not the movie is good or not.

And it is. It’s not perfect, and there are some lows – those goddamned monkeys – but overall, it’s an Indiana Jones movie. It has all the parts that make up the character, and it doesn’t descend into pointless fan-service and callbacks. It would be very easy to drown this movie in cameos and winks to the audience, but it manages to show restraint rather than going for the low-hanging fruit.

The crucial part of the Indy movies is that they are so heavily reflective of the time they are set. The first three are all influenced by Republic serials from the ’30s, so they have dastardly Nazis, moustache-twirling villains, villainous foreigners, damsels in distress, plots that function like serialised stories with each puzzle leading to a new one, and constant action sequences.

With Crystal Skull, Spielberg moves away from the ’30s and Republic and brings us to the ’50s where the movie du jour was the B-Movie. The filmmakers embrace the aesthetic wholeheartedly, from the opening set to Elvis to the fight between the Greasers and the Joe Colleges. They also don’t skimp on the homegrown villainy too, by showing the Red Scare and how quickly a hero can become a villain once suspicion of being a Commie falls on them.

And again, keep in mind while Spielberg and Lucas are making this movie about suspicion and terror on American soil, George “If you’re not with us, you’re with the terrorists” Bush is in the White House. It’s easy to think E.T. and Ewoks and forget how political Lucas and Spielberg are as filmmakers.

The plot of this movie being all-American guy has to stop Russians from getting a super weapon from a bunch of saucer men is so 1950s that if this movie was running in theatres/drive-ins in 1957, it would be packing out the house for months.

In the end, this is a fun, tight (two hours is short these days) movie that showcases why we love Harrison Ford in this role. Just as he did with Han Solo in The Force Awakens, Ford climbs straight back into the skin of the character and seems to be having the time of his life. It would be easy for him to phone it in or sleepwalk, but instead, he does great work.

As for the rest of the cast, Cate Blanchett is a wonderfully creepy villain, and Karen Allen is adorably tough as the second best character in the entire series. John Hurt was a king amongst men and did crazy intelligence unlike any other actor. And LeBeouf is great too. The actor has taken some licks over the years but he is brilliant in this movie, especially the quieter moments of utter sadness when he realises his mentor, Oxley, has lost his mind. He dissolves from tough guy biker into a lost little boy in a really affecting way that seems to have been overlooked by viewers who wrote him off when they saw this movie.

Final Thoughts – Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

It’s fascinating to me that a big criticism of this movie was simply the presence of aliens. It is not as though the first three Indy movies didn’t lean into some weird concepts. Perhaps biblical magic is the line, and supernatural weirdness crosses that line into something that strains credulity in a way that the Holy Grail or the Ark melting a load of Nazis doesn’t.

Overall, I can only repeat that I really enjoy this movie. It looks gorgeous with Janusz Kaminski’s photography managing to invoke the originals and also fill the screen with vibrant colours and shadowy hiding places. It has some great humour and doesn’t take itself too seriously. And it feels like a real love letter to not only Indiana Jones but also the early careers of two filmmakers and their experiences growing up and watching movies in the 1950s.

And also, I think the fridge bit is awesome.

What are you thoughts on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull?