Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

dir. Stephen Spielberg
writ. David Koepp, George Lucas and Jeff Nathanson (story)
feat. Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Shia LaBeouf, Karen Allen

It's the Cold War and Indy got old. But if a bit slower than before, he's still tough enough to show up young, ballsy upstart Shia LaBeouf. Um, right. First off, no one actually thinks LaBeouf is the vaguest bit tough. Whiny? Piddling? Overrated? Sure, all of these things, but not tough. Granted, if you're going to set him up to imagine he's tough while the 60-something hero leaves him in his dust, then OK, fine. LaBeouf isn't the real problem here. The lack of a cohesive story and the inane set pieces cover that.

Don't get me wrong. It's a fun film. I enjoyed the experience of sitting through it, carried along by it's quick pace from one adventure bit to the next. However, I had to decide very early that I was going along with a film that permits our hero to fly hundreds of feet, possibly a mile, in a metal refrigerator before rolling out with only minor bruises. Color me old-fashioned but I still believe an action film can be made where the action, while unlikely and perhaps impossible in the real world, feels possible. Sure, a man can't really sustain being dragged under a truck holding on by only his whip, but maybe the right man, a strong heroic man, can pull it off. No one makes it through that fridge flight. And no one swings from vine to vine with his monkey friends better than Tarzan ever dreamed.

It's this surrendering to the ways of modern action filmmaking that most disappoints me with the film. When Spielberg pulled off Minority Report, dipping deep and ugly into the well of Dick, and churning out some unsettling imagery that I wouldn't have deemed the maker of E.T. capable of, I was refreshed. Now, with Indy, he seems to have abandoned clever plot development and ingenious set pieces for easy fun, cheap laughs and digital grossouts.