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Indy's Last Crusade ended on an absolutely pitch-perfect note: father and son riding off into the sunset together (not forgetting Sallah and Marcus Brody, of course), accompanied by John Williams' majestic Raiders March. It was a hard act to follow, but the Indiana Jones series is tailor-made to provide sequels, being based on the TV adventure serials that George Lucas watched in his youth. Surely, then, everybody welcomes the return of their favourite archaeologist after an extended wait. With Raiders of the Lost Ark, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas redefined the action adventure, taking the art of stunt performing to a whole new level, and the series has a considerable legacy - The Mummy, National Treasure, Pirates of the Caribbean, to name but three, all owe a huge debt to the ingenuity and excitement of Indy's three 1980s outings. Now, two decades later, he's back to show the imitators how it's done.
Of course, the world of films has moved on a lot since Henry Jones Jr. last graced cinema screens in 1989, due in major part to Spielberg himself. The intervening years have seen the rise of CGI, and the technological developments are evident in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (a title that's a good two words too long; I'll call it Kingdom from here). The very first shot, which of course fades in from the iconic Paramount logo, was clearly created on a computer and it's a sign of what will follow. Despite Spielberg claiming in interviews that he endeavoured to do everything the old-fashioned way, even editing on a vintage Moviola machine, ILM's computer boffins have clearly had a lot of input into the visuals here. I don't intend to jump on the "CGI is always bad" bandwagon, but it doesn't really belong in an Indy movie, which have always had down-and-dirty action scenes in which you can practically feel the punches. Admittedly, the earlier films did have some optical effects, but they were rare and warranted by the story. Here it seems that CGI is just used to cut corners or needlessly increase the scale; the ingenuity of earlier instalments seems regrettably absent. The film's centrepiece action sequence, a vehicular battle through the Amazon jungle, is marred by the obvious use of green screen. In general, too, there is a total lack of threat, as the good guys now seem superhuman, surviving endless ridiculous situations. It's almost unforgivable, considering one of the best things about Indy in the first place was his humanity.
The major factor that led to our 19-year wait for this new instalment was the fact that the key players could never seem to agree on a script. The one that was finally settled on is from the pen of David Koepp, who has been behind many a blockbuster for Spielberg and others (Jurassic Park, War of the Worlds, Spider-Man, Mission: Impossible), but for something that took so long to come to fruition, it's a surprisingly bloated screenplay. The middle suffers from too much exposition and not enough getting to the point, while the start does not begin at a gallop like the previous adventures. Instead, there's a fairly arduous build-up that takes too long to get to the big bang. Nevertheless, the necessary change from the 1930s setting to a 1950s one is well handled, giving Kingdom a new flavour that still seems in keeping with the older movies, and indeed recalling Lucas' own American Graffiti.
Amidst an almost distractingly high-calibre cast (people like Jim Broadbent show up for the briefest of appearances), the largest new role is given to Shia LaBeouf, who Spielberg has clearly tagged to go on to big things - DreamWorks, the studio co-founded by the director, has been behind every one of the young star's recent films. LaBeouf again shows that he's worthy of the attention, because his preening greaser character, reminiscent of James Dean or the young Marlon Brando, is a great addition to the film. He tags along with Indy for much of the journey, and if they don't quite share the same brilliant repartee as Harrison Ford and Sean Connery did previously, that is mainly the script's failing. John Hurt also clearly enjoys his offbeat character, which I won't detail here for fear of giving away too much.
There's a good deal to praise about the film, then, but there is a slight sense that maybe Spielberg's contemporaries have caught up with him. The action no longer pushes boundaries, and the tale does not crackle along at a relentless pace like it should. It is lacking in the humour department too, with some of the one-liners sounding forced or laboured (and there were times where I laughed at the film rather than with it). Even the musical genius that is John Williams brings little new here; in each of the previous sequels he introduced distinctive and memorable new motifs to accompany the central theme, but this time round nothing really stands out. Williams' middling effort sums up the film as a whole: not bad, but unfortunately a long way from earlier heights. Spielberg should probably go back to making his "arty" stuff. Lucas, perhaps, should just stop.
The summary
The fourth adventure of Indiana Jones is generally entertaining, but also disappointingly stodgy. Though hardly a disaster, it's not a much-hoped-for triumph either.
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