To say I dig Indian Jones and franchise is an understatement. From the minute I saw the first movie, didn’t care much for the second (Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) and was thrilled with the third (Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade), I looked forward to the fourth. That includes the Marvel comic book series, the Dark horse series and the PC games have provided hours of inspiration, and career of sorts. So at long last, after nearly two decades the fourth movie breezes in to movie theaters in time for summer. And I have mixed feelings about it.
First up, no big screen movie is complete without a good car chase. And Kingdom delivers, many car chases, and a motorcycle chase through the streets of New Haven, er, the mythical college that Indy teaches at. But either I’ve become jaded by the car chase, or the spark that makes a good chase was missing. They went on too long. Or they were too tame. Or it was just too easy to see that they were fake. Movie magic is supposed to get us to suspend disbelief and buy into the thrill of the chase even though we kinda know that the bad guys will fail and the good guys will preserver. But somehow these chase scenes had all the mystery of a people magazine interview. The opening chase didn’t even provide any plot advancement.
The plot, as it turns out, wasn’t all that bad. Self referential, bad puns, and the usual action adventure clichés kept the dialog right where it should be. Except that Cate Blanchett should have spent more time in the study session of what a good fake Russian accent sounds like by watching Boris and Natasha cartoon clips. But that’s a little quibble. The big quibble is the move to digital effects and how it affects the cinematography. I kept thinking I was watching the stage production of Indiana Jones the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull instead of the movie version. Old needs to look old, not fresh old. Jungles don’t glisten in the night, with every branch lit for the perfect shot. If the goal was to shoot a film that showed evidence of a huge special effects budget, then Indy IV succeeded.
The action takes place in 1957, post war, red scare, creaky pre 60’s America. So all the icons of 1950’s Americana are in play, nuclear biker sock hop war weary small town schtick. Indy gets dragged to exotic locale to rescue an old colleague with all the usual men in suits threat updated to the time period. I’ll spoil no further, but the plot twists will keep you engaged right up to the will they or won’t they ending.
