Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
This is a film that demands some significant suspension of disbelief: that a man could survive a nuclear blast in a lead lined fridge, that there’s even such a thing as a leadlined fridge and that someone called Shia LaBeouf is an actor not a receptionist in a beauty parlour.
Once you get over those, you can sit back, enjoy the fun and count the number of theme park rides that could be based on the film. I got to about four.
It is quaintly old fashioned. When the first lot of IJ films appeared they were a throwback to the old adventure series and movies. At the time there were very few action adventure movies so there was something fresh and different in their nostalgia. Now we’re awash with high octane adventure and action that, ridiculous as it is, seems more realistic than this Indy. This time round there is nothing new.
However nostalgia has never been so much fun. Harrison Ford still has it - it’s wonderful that there’s no pretending he’s young and even better that his love interest is his age (the most radical innovation of the film). Cate Blanchette is hilarious as the communist villain. Her accent sounds completely fake, but even real Russians sound fake when they speak English. She manages to inject a moment of real depth right at the end of film that suddenly gives her character a slight twist. It’s knowledge not power - and it’s her work rather than the script that delivers it.
The crystal skull of the title has a conveniently selective magnetic force, strong when the plot requires it, gone when it’s inconvenient - bit like the whole film - highly magnetic in parts.
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