Do the people who defined popular culture have a license to destroy it? This is a minor philosophical diversion you may want to use to centre yourself during this belated and unnecessary bolt on to the Indiana Jones series. It isn't a film at all so much as a deliberate and sinister act of cultural vandalism.
Why was it made? Putting aside the fatuous nonsense Ford and co. have vomited out at press junkets, nostalgia fed self-indulgence seems to be the motive. Three sixty-somethings, pillows stuffed with laurels, have collaborated, perhaps with some sense of desperation on Ford's part, to relive past glories. This was the screenplay, we're led to believe, that they all agreed was the best out of the many versions produced over the years. David Koep's effort is so anaemic however, that it simply beggars belief that this was the superior treatment. The reality is that his clunky, unwieldy discharge of a script - a Frankenstein collage of previous (and one suspects superior and more coherent) drafts was a compromise between director, star and producer disagreements between which kept this one in development hell for two decades. Once you've seen the finished product you will rue the day they settled their differences.
Clearly the will to make the movie was greater that the need to get it right. Consequently what's made it to the screen is conspicuously and unforgivably deficient in the elements that made the original movies the gold standard for this type of action adventure. David Koep, fumbling to adapt a story from George Lucas and Jeff Nathanson, might have deserved a greater share of the blame were it not for the notorious and disastrous interventionism of Lucas, who famously binned a draft from the Shawshank Redemption's Frank Darabont and was determined to saddle the film with Ed Wood style b-movie stupidity. Koep's inheritance of this poison chalice, making him the Walter Donovan of those who stepped up to pen this sequel, has nothing to do with aptitude in crafting 120 pages of platinum movie fuel, more his pliable tendency as a hack for hire who'd be unlikely to fight his corner when faced with Lucas' imbecilic vetoes.
The finished film is flabby, awkward and overcooked, not least in the absurd nuclear opener. The Fifties b-movie cues are all present and correct flying saucers, the red peril and the aforementioned atomic threat but they're integrated with variable success and although its better made than its progenitors its not always better executed. This is a movie that runs on with everyone both behind and in front of the camera trying to ape the style and tone of old but not being quite able to remember how they did it. Spielberg hasn't shot in this aspect ratio for many a moon and it shows. Compositions lack depth and inventiveness, as though he wasn't sure how to fill the screen astonishing given his talent and experience, and the editing, so precise in the previous three pictures, is slapdash in places, rendering such sequences confusing with some shots poorly matched. But with Indy movies the film is just half the picture. The other John Williams' score, is as much a character as any on screen and unfortunately he's a match for most of the one dimensional supporting cast in this installment. His effort is anonymous, continuing a downward trajectory that began in the early nineties and shows no sign of recovery here. With not one memorable cue, Williams appears to be following contemporaries like Jerry Goldsmith who were once masters of big orchestral compositions but settled into self-plagiarism and melodic schizophrenia. Williams is of course alive, unlike poor Goldsmith but this score wouldn't pass mustard as proof of life following a kidnap. Much of what we hear sounds like a random collection of notes looking for a tune and that's a shame because an on form Williams might have elevated the proceedings, not least in the interminable middle section. This second act lags and is laden with exposition rather than incident. Film students will appreciate the lesson from the most successful filmmaker in the world in how not to sustain audience interest but the rest of us will wonder what happened to Spielberg's red pencil as we're treated to scene after scene in which Koep's screenplay tells us what's going on without troubling itself to show it.
The cast is variable, with Ford occasionally good value as a long in the tooth Indy. Too often however he looks slow and stilted and the supporting cast give him nothing to spark off. The real tragedy however is a reanimated Karen Allen, looking as if she'd just stepped out of a Beverley Hills Plastic Surgeons and given little to do but looks startled. Her rebooted Marion Ravenwood bares no resemblance to the character of old and her presence seems forced, which it is as it's a device to introduce Shia Labeouf's heir apparent Mutt Williams. There's a joke there somewhere Indy named himself after the family dog and his son has given himself a pet moniker too but that's about as subtle as the new film gets. For a movie allegedly made for the fans, the irony is that Crystal Skull delivers the, er, nuclear family many of them would have seen in their worst nightmares. It's exactly the film you'd have expected a sentimental and egregious Hollywood machine to have made when tailoring a blockbuster to its imagined family audience but Spielberg should know better and the syrup drenched ending should be a colossal embarrassment for all concerned.
A lyric from the Elvis song that opens the film is neat shorthand for what follows; "You said you were high classed, well that was just a lie." Indy fans will wonder how they ever fell for it.
Why was it made? Putting aside the fatuous nonsense Ford and co. have vomited out at press junkets, nostalgia fed self-indulgence seems to be the motive. Three sixty-somethings, pillows stuffed with laurels, have collaborated, perhaps with some sense of desperation on Ford's part, to relive past glories. This was the screenplay, we're led to believe, that they all agreed was the best out of the many versions produced over the years. David Koep's effort is so anaemic however, that it simply beggars belief that this was the superior treatment. The reality is that his clunky, unwieldy discharge of a script - a Frankenstein collage of previous (and one suspects superior and more coherent) drafts was a compromise between director, star and producer disagreements between which kept this one in development hell for two decades. Once you've seen the finished product you will rue the day they settled their differences.
Clearly the will to make the movie was greater that the need to get it right. Consequently what's made it to the screen is conspicuously and unforgivably deficient in the elements that made the original movies the gold standard for this type of action adventure. David Koep, fumbling to adapt a story from George Lucas and Jeff Nathanson, might have deserved a greater share of the blame were it not for the notorious and disastrous interventionism of Lucas, who famously binned a draft from the Shawshank Redemption's Frank Darabont and was determined to saddle the film with Ed Wood style b-movie stupidity. Koep's inheritance of this poison chalice, making him the Walter Donovan of those who stepped up to pen this sequel, has nothing to do with aptitude in crafting 120 pages of platinum movie fuel, more his pliable tendency as a hack for hire who'd be unlikely to fight his corner when faced with Lucas' imbecilic vetoes.
The finished film is flabby, awkward and overcooked, not least in the absurd nuclear opener. The Fifties b-movie cues are all present and correct flying saucers, the red peril and the aforementioned atomic threat but they're integrated with variable success and although its better made than its progenitors its not always better executed. This is a movie that runs on with everyone both behind and in front of the camera trying to ape the style and tone of old but not being quite able to remember how they did it. Spielberg hasn't shot in this aspect ratio for many a moon and it shows. Compositions lack depth and inventiveness, as though he wasn't sure how to fill the screen astonishing given his talent and experience, and the editing, so precise in the previous three pictures, is slapdash in places, rendering such sequences confusing with some shots poorly matched. But with Indy movies the film is just half the picture. The other John Williams' score, is as much a character as any on screen and unfortunately he's a match for most of the one dimensional supporting cast in this installment. His effort is anonymous, continuing a downward trajectory that began in the early nineties and shows no sign of recovery here. With not one memorable cue, Williams appears to be following contemporaries like Jerry Goldsmith who were once masters of big orchestral compositions but settled into self-plagiarism and melodic schizophrenia. Williams is of course alive, unlike poor Goldsmith but this score wouldn't pass mustard as proof of life following a kidnap. Much of what we hear sounds like a random collection of notes looking for a tune and that's a shame because an on form Williams might have elevated the proceedings, not least in the interminable middle section. This second act lags and is laden with exposition rather than incident. Film students will appreciate the lesson from the most successful filmmaker in the world in how not to sustain audience interest but the rest of us will wonder what happened to Spielberg's red pencil as we're treated to scene after scene in which Koep's screenplay tells us what's going on without troubling itself to show it.
The cast is variable, with Ford occasionally good value as a long in the tooth Indy. Too often however he looks slow and stilted and the supporting cast give him nothing to spark off. The real tragedy however is a reanimated Karen Allen, looking as if she'd just stepped out of a Beverley Hills Plastic Surgeons and given little to do but looks startled. Her rebooted Marion Ravenwood bares no resemblance to the character of old and her presence seems forced, which it is as it's a device to introduce Shia Labeouf's heir apparent Mutt Williams. There's a joke there somewhere Indy named himself after the family dog and his son has given himself a pet moniker too but that's about as subtle as the new film gets. For a movie allegedly made for the fans, the irony is that Crystal Skull delivers the, er, nuclear family many of them would have seen in their worst nightmares. It's exactly the film you'd have expected a sentimental and egregious Hollywood machine to have made when tailoring a blockbuster to its imagined family audience but Spielberg should know better and the syrup drenched ending should be a colossal embarrassment for all concerned.
A lyric from the Elvis song that opens the film is neat shorthand for what follows; "You said you were high classed, well that was just a lie." Indy fans will wonder how they ever fell for it.