Underrated classics: INDIANA JONES & THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL!

A new Spielberg film is almost always met with a rapturous critical reception and a huge box-office gross – this is a man who has made one flop in his nearly 40 year career – and 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was no exception. If it weren’t for the juggernaut of The Dark Knight it would have been the highest grossing movie of the year, and retains a 77% positive review score on Rotten Tomatoes. Yet ask most people what they thought of Indy 4 and their reaction is generally one of derision or scorn: ‘Indiana Jones shouldn’t have aliens’, ‘Harrison Ford is too old’, ‘ It had too many special effects’, ‘It wasn’t as good as the others’. People have begun to apply the kind of hatred to it that they do to the Star Wars prequels. I am therefore here to defend my hero and this enormously misunderstood film.

Indiana Jones has never been about anything more than entertainment. No films deliver more on that front than the original Indy trilogy, and no one can deny the enormous entertainment factor of Crystal Skull. The opening chase alone rivals Temple of Doom’s for thrills: Area 51, Indy forced to locate a mysterious crate in that warehouse, Irina Spalko’s icy menace and Mac’s treachery, a brilliant truck chase (all done with entirely practical effects, by the way), a rocket sled, AND a nuclear explosion. With Indiana Jones. Entertainment doesn’t get much better.

Yet what Spielberg attempted to do with this instalment was reach out beyond the boundaries of entertaining, to approach Indy as an expression of what concerns him currently, as any great filmmaker does with any great film. Initial concern over Harrison Ford’s ability to play the part at his age was quickly assuaged (he cracks the whip as well as he always did), but he is perhaps slightly more creaky that he once was. Indy isn’t as sharp, he’s more vulnerable, and he questions whether he in fact may be getting too old for this after all. Rather than ignoring Ford’s increased age, and pretending that he is as spry as he was in 1989, Spielberg wisely uses this as the bases for the film itself.

Indy is a ‘40s action hero. He fights Nazi’s and finds religious artefacts. Yet the world moves on, and as many older people including Lucas and Spielberg find, it can be hard to move with it. Indy is now out of his element, in his twilight years and yet still trying to cling to his heyday – witness the Doomtown sequence, the brilliant image of Indy lost and confused in a pristine plastic ‘50s world, sticking out like a sore thumb.

Similarly, the politics of the world move on too. The Nazi’s are no longer the bad guys in the 1950s, for the onset of the Cold War had brought new threats to Western shores: Communism, and the atomic bomb. Fear and irrationality prevailed for decades to come, with people terrified by the threat of invasion and destruction – the McCarthy hearings and the Cuban Missile Crisis were just around the corner. Yet these concerns are unfamiliar to Indy – he was comfortable with the black-and-white of the evil Nazis, and the greatest threat to him yet comes not from evil enemies, but from the twisted politics and suspicion of the Cold War. The scene in which Indy is interrogated by FBI agents following his escape from the bomb, and his subsequent suspension from his teaching job, is an interesting parallel to the explanatory scene from Raiders: “Frankly Dr. Jones we’re suspicious of Professor Ravenwood, being mentioned so prominently in a Nazi cable...” is in that scene quickly quashed by Brody’s simple “Oh Rubbish, Ravenwood’s no Nazi”, and the matter is quickly dismissed. Yet the politics of McCarthy era America cause even the word of an army General to not be enough to sate suspicions of Indy, and this air of suspicion and mystery pervades the entire film.

Even the powers of the Crystal Skull itself are relevant. No longer are Indy’s MacGuffins simply artefacts of great power that can be misused – the Holy Grail or the Ark of the Covenant would be just as desirable to those wanting to misuse their power today – but the Skull’s psychic powers tap into the fears of 1950s society. With technological advances racing out of control, numerous films of the time tapped into this atmosphere: the fluoride and ‘bodily fluids’ of Dr Strangelove and the prevalence of the sci-fi B movie.

This I feel is where people’s dislike for the film largely comes. The style of the original trilogy is very much of the 1940s adventure serial genre, a homage to which Indy was originaly conceived as. Yet the ‘50s cinema was very different – lots of bright colours and shiny surfaces, and most importantly lots of aliens. The B-movie is what we now associate with ‘50s cinema, and by placing Crystal Skull’s plot in this era, the style must change to fit in too. That is exactly why aliens are relevant to Indy, just as relevant as any religious artefact he may rescue is.

The Indiana Jones movies are films about films, about embracing the thrills of the screen and paying dues to those that have come before. Given time, I feel that Crystal Skull shall begin to be accepted as the truly great film that it is, and especially as the truly great Indy film that it is, in much the same way that I feel the Star Wars prequels will be. Those of us who grew up with both the original and new trilogy adore them all, but those older and more jaded viewers refuse to accept any new addition to their cannon. This unwillingness to embrace everything about the new Indy rather than search for what is familiar and declare that the best part (everyone says the motorcycle chase was great, but the flying saucer the worst) is what keeps it a disappointment in many people’s minds. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull embraces its B-movieness, as well as its protagonist’s age and its new settings and themes, and remains much more entertaining than virtually every other film out there. Plus, what’s a good B-movie without a flying saucer?