Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Set during the Cold War, the Soviets—led by sword-wielding Irina Spalko—are in search of a crystal skull which has supernatural powers related to a mystical Lost City of Gold. Indy is coerced to head to Peru at the behest of a young man whose friend—and Indy's colleague—Professor Oxley has been captured for his knowledge of the skull's whereabouts.
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What critics say influenced Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Most of the in-jokes, in fact, are either aimed squarely at fanboys (a cheeky reference to an episode of the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles television series featuring Pancho Villa) or movie nerds (Mutt making his entrance looking exactly like Marlon Brando in The Wild One ), with little for anyone else other than convoluted archeological mumbo-jumbo meant only to move the characters from one overly elaborate chase to the next.
The Eisenhower-era highlight reel (war veteran Indy’s true blue patriotic valor gets shown off when our hero offers “I Like Ike” as his potential last words) is at its lamest when Shia LaBeouf’s greaser motorcyclist, Mutt, is introduced dressed and posed like Marlon Brando from The Wild One, a desperate and disproportional equating of two attractive young actors that cries out for a Lloyd Bentsen-inspired putdown.
Mutt is Marlon Brando's "The Wild One" character put into the frame of a "Back to the Future" era Michael J. Fox.
His journey reunites him with Marion Ravenwood (three cheers for the return of Raiders' Karen Allen) and also allows him to share adventures with a brash young greaser (Shia LaBeouf, amusingly making his entrance like Marlon Brando in The Wild One) and a loony old professor (John Hurt).
"What are you, like, 80?" asks young Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf), a ducktailed dropout armed with a comb and a switchblade, and an apparent jones for Marlon Brando in "The Wild One."
Neither is it such a great improvement to saddle Indy with an equally surly young sidekick, Mutt Williams, played by Shia LaBeouf, who's a dead ringer for Marlon Brando in "The Wild One."
As a result, the film itself feels less inspired by its predecessors than by such second-tier, CGI-laden Raiders knock-offs as Stargate, The Mummy and National Treasure.
This is the kind of thing a hacky Spielberg wannabe like Stephen Sommers would do in The Mummy franchise.
Jones since "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Indy has had amusing romances in between -- most notably, a fling with the ravishing Kate Capshaw from "Temple of Doom" -- but nothing has quite matched the magnetism of Allen and Ford, who bring a certain charisma to the notion of an unlikely romance that has routinely attempted to be replicated in similarly-themed action adventures like "The Mummy" and "National Treasure."
It makes reference to many elements of the 1950s, such as nuclear testing, Ike, Communists, rock 'n' roll and juvenile delinquents, and it even provides a kind of full circle for both Lucas (with the previously mentioned American Graffiti echo) and Spielberg (with a Close Encounters of the Third Kind echo), but doesn't do anything with these concepts other than simply present them.
Later Indy says "I have a bad feeling about this," echoing the "Star Wars" series, and the film's denouement heavy-handedly mimics "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."
But the structure - resist, capture, escape, repeat - and the elaborate and escalating plot machinations (with nods to "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," the Red Scare and the blacklist) confuse action for consequence.
Steven Spielberg directs ("Saving Private Ryan"/"Close Encounters of the Third Kind"/ "Schindler's List") it in an exhausting manner, trying at all costs to keep it old-fashioned, action-packed and cutesy charming.
Oh, there’s a nice hook at its core — all the reviews calling the film a sequel-of-sorts to Close Encounters of the Third Kind are too glib, but not far off — but the series of treasure hunts that ultimately leads them to it is basically random.
The climax, which brings all of the central players to the City of Gold and face to face with an alien creature right out of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," boasts solid showmanship and satisfyingly wraps things up.
It offers lots of animal action (monkeys and hordes of red ants, primarily) as well as great stunts both CGI (“Look out for those falls!”) and physical, as the Colonel Professor and Mutt draw swords and make like Errol Flynn and Basil Rathbone in “Captain Blood.”
It doesn't jibe with attempts at old-school cliffhanging, such as Blanchett's "Captain Blood" duel with LaBeouf.
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Jones since "Raiders of the Lost Ark." Indy has had amusing romances in between -- most notably, a fling with the ravishing Kate Capshaw from "Temple of Doom" -- but nothing has quite matched the magnetism of Allen and Ford, who bring a certain charisma to the notion of an unlikely romance that has routinely attempted to be replicated in similarly-themed action adventures like "The Mummy" and "National Treasure."
As a result, the film itself feels less inspired by its predecessors than by such second-tier, CGI-laden Raiders knock-offs as Stargate , The Mummy and National Treasure .
The second part of the movie feels a lot like National Treasure, with Indy as a Nic Cage puzzle-solving cypher.
Without that, it's basically a better-made version of the National Treasure series.
To be fair, “Crystal Skull” is no “DaVinci Code” or “National Treasure.”
Combined with Spielberg's attempts to film the movie like his older works, this truly does feel like an "Indiana Jones" movie for most of the time - certainly far more effectively than last year's fourth "Die Hard" which never felt like a part of that series (although admittedly was a better crafted and more satisfying action blockbuster than this).Time will sadly not look so kindly on Skull's abundance of computer animation or lack of a really good new story to get us hooked, but the standard is still far higher than many of the franchises imitators have given us over the years (even weak Indy sits well above the "National Treasure" and "Tomb Raider" franchises, not to mention the first "The Mummy" sequel).
The Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) was penned by Lawrence Kasdan ( The Big Chill) whose unavailability for the sequel, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) led Lucas back to Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz (who'd written American Graffiti for him).
She is a less sadistic version of Bond villainess Rosa Klebb in "From Russia with Love", he's a weedier version of Brando in "The Wild One" but quickly becomes one of the few young pretty boy sidekicks that you actually find yourself liking.
The K.G.B. agent Irina Spalko, played by Cate Blanchett, takes off from Lotte Lenya’s slit-eyed Commie menace in “From Russia with Love.”
But it wouldn't be the '50s without Commies, in the chic person of Irina Spalko (played by Blanchett with the severe demeanor of Cyd Charisse's Ninotchka in the 1957 MGM musical Silk Stockings and the black bob Charisse sports in The Band Wagon).
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In a later sequence, young Shia LaBeouf makes his entrance wearing a black leather jacket and riding a motorcycle—like Marlon Brando in “The Wild One.” He’s a snarling kid named Mutt, with a thick, frequently combed wave of hair; he calls Indy “Teach,” and he needs a father—like James Dean in “Rebel Without a Cause.”
The new film opens with a moment that reminded me of George Lucas' classic American Graffiti : a group of teens joyrides through the desert in a vintage car, rock music blaring from the radio.
But, with the action now set in 1957 (19 years after Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, itself released 19 years ago), it also carries a whiff of writer George Lucas's 1973 breakthrough American Graffiti and its TV cousin "Happy Days," themselves sentimental reminiscences of the '50s and early '60s.
It's pure Spielberg, and Lucas gets his own movie references: the film opens with a drag race straight out of American Graffiti , and in the climax, Indy steals Han Solo's most famous line.
The opening sequence, with 1950s teenagers drag-racing in the Nevada desert, recalls Lucas's "American Graffiti."
Shades of Lucas' American Graffiti linger over the opening credits, as bobby-soxed teens in rural Nevada race their deuce coupe to the musical stylings of Mr. Elvis Presley.
An amalgamation of "American Graffiti," "Star Wars," "E.T." "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," and nearly every successful adventure movie franchise of the '30s, '40s, and '50s, the movie is dotted with immediately recognizable nostalgic elements that play to the kid in everyone.