INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL

Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones

INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL (2008). Director: Steven Spielberg. 

In 1957 some Russians, led by Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett), attack a U.S. military base and carry off an artifact that is stored there. Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) manages to survive the attack, and even lives through an atomic test by sheltering inside a refrigerator in a model town filled with dummies. Teaming up with a young man named "Mutt" (Shia LaBeouf) he later learns that his mother is Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) and that Mutt is his son. The whole group, along with Irina and her boys and an addle-pated Professor Oxley (John Hurt) ,wind up in South America, where they discover the hidden "El Dorado" as well as the remnants of alien beings who have skulls made of crystal. Or something like that. 

Ford, Allen, Blanchett

The trouble these days with the Indiana Jones movies, which were originally imitations of the classic cliffhanger serials, is that there have been so many imitations and rip-offs of the franchise -- everything from the National Treasure movies to the Da Vince Code and so on and so on -- that any originality has been completely eradicated. The very over-familiar elements in this include grumpy Jones' relationships with ex-girlfriend and son, the maps and codes that will lead to the treasure, the aliens (who resemble the monster in Alien in some ways as well as the aliens in Close Encounters), the locales that we've all seen before etc. etc. There is absolutely nothing fresh and new in the film. Obsessive fans probably won't care, finding the cliches comforting and endearing. 

LaBeouf and Ford

Steven Spielberg directs by the numbers. I've often felt that the FX people and cinematographers do all the work, actually, in some movies like this. Some of the action sequences in Crystal Skull are quite well-done -- not always the case in heroic thrillers -- but you are always getting the sensation that it's all stuff you've seen many times before -- the amazing leaps, the foolhardy jumps into space, driving off of cliffs etc. Is there anything unusual about any of this? The movie does have, for me at least, one knock-out sequence, and that's when the characters are besieged by very large and voracious ants who move with frightening swiftness. (Of course, there's nothing original about that, either, but it does look great!) The underground sets look too new and are always over-lit, making them much less creepy than they could have been. 

Allen, Ford and Hurt

As for the actors, well Ford could probably play this part while asleep. Blanchett is effective, although she seems to be channeling Natasha from Rocky and Bullwinkle most of the time. Allen remains perky and attractive in her way. It is probably not LaBeouf's fault that Mutt comes off as being rather obnoxious through much of the movie. I found the whole flick too cutesy and obvious by far and was annoyed that a sequence at the very end rips off Journey to the Center of the Earth. 

Verdict: You'll swear you've already seen this even if you haven't. **1/2.