Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull arrived in 2008 as the fourth film in the Indiana Jones series and a sequel to Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Steven Spielberg directed. David Koepp wrote the script, with George Lucas and Jeff Nathanson also credited. Harrison Ford returned as Indiana Jones at 64 years old. The film runs 122 minutes. It is an adventure and an action picture, and its tagline promised, “The adventure continues…”
The adventure does continue. It just does not build.
Trailer, via Paramount Movies.
The Cold War Replaces the Earlier Enemies
The film is set in 1957. The enemies are Soviet KGB agents led by Irina Spalko, played by Cate Blanchett. Spalko wields a sword and wants a crystal skull with telepathic powers. The skull sits in Peru, tied to a mystical Lost City of Gold called Akator.
That swap matters. The filmmakers intended to pay tribute to the science fiction B movies of the 1950s, and the film says so on screen. The result is a picture that trades archaeology for aliens.
The plot opens at Hangar 51 in Nevada. Soviet agents have kidnapped Jones and his partner George “Mac” McHale, played by Ray Winstone. They force Jones to locate a mummified alien from the Roswell incident. Jones finds it. Mac double-crosses him. Jones escapes to a model town at the Nevada Test Site minutes before an atomic bomb test and survives inside a lead-lined refrigerator.
That refrigerator is the moment the film announces what it is willing to do. It is not a small liberty. It is the whole movie in one shot.
Mutt Williams and the Road to Peru
Back at Marshall College, Jones learns he has been placed on indefinite leave of absence. A young greaser named Mutt Williams, played by Shia LaBeouf, finds him. Mutt says his friend and Jones’s colleague, Harold “Ox” Oxley, found a crystal skull in Peru while searching for Akator. John Hurt plays Oxley.
KGB agents try to grab them. The two escape, starting a brawl between the greasers and the jocks and losing their pursuers in a chase through the College Campus District. Then they go to Peru.
In Peru they find carvings made by Ox. The carvings lead to the grave of Francisco de Orellana, which holds an elongated crystal skull. Leaving the grave, the Soviets capture them and take them to a camp in the Amazon rainforest.
The supporting cast is deep and mostly wasted:
- Ray Winstone as George “Mac” McHale
- John Hurt as Professor Harold Oxley
- Jim Broadbent as Dean Charles Stanforth
- Igor Jijikine as Antonin Dovchenko
- Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood
That is a lot of talent standing around in a jungle.
Marion Ravenwood Returns
At the camp, Jones is reunited with Mac, Spalko, an addled Ox, and Mutt’s mother, Marion Ravenwood. Karen Allen returns to the role she played in the earlier films. The film treats this as a big deal, because it is one.
Spalko tells Jones the skulls are alien in origin. She says she intends to use them to project Soviet propaganda into the minds of Americans. Jones has a brief telepathic connection to the skull. It commands him to return it to Akator. He realizes Ox is communicating through automatic writing and finds a route to the city.
Then the escape attempt goes wrong. Indy and Marion get caught in quicksand.
The film’s back half leans on these set pieces. Quicksand, jungle, ancient city. The pieces are familiar. The energy is not.
Ford at 64 and the Aging Question
Ford was 64 when he made this film. He spent three hours a day in a gym. He practiced with the bullwhip for two weeks. He ate a high-protein diet of fish and vegetables. He had stayed fit during the series’ hiatus because he hoped for another film.
He did many of his own stunts. Stunt technology had become safer since 1989, and he felt the work improved his performance.
Ford also wanted the script to acknowledge his age. He refused to dye his hair. He argued his return could help American culture be less paranoid about aging, pointing to the film’s family appeal. “This is a movie which is geared not to [the young] segment of the demographic, an age-defined segment,” he said. “We’ve got a great shot at breaking the movie demographic constraints.”
Spielberg backed him. “When a guy gets to be that age and he still packs the same punch, and he still runs just as fast and climbs just as high, he’s gonna be breathing a little heavier at the end of the set piece,” Spielberg said. “And I felt, ‘Let’s have some fun with that. Let’s not hide that.'”
Spielberg recalled the line, “It’s not the years, it’s the mileage.” He said he could not tell the difference between Ford during the shoots for The Last Crusade and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Blanchett’s Spalko and the Villain Problem
Cate Blanchett plays Irina Spalko, the Soviet agent and main antagonist. Koepp created the character. Producer Frank Marshall said Irina continued the tradition of Indiana having a love-hate relationship “with every woman he ever comes in contact with.”
Blanchett had wanted to play a villain for a couple of years. She enjoyed joining the Indiana Jones legacy because she loved the previous films.
The performance is committed. The character is thin. Spalko gets a sword and a psychic ambition, and the script never gives her a reason to be in this story beyond the plot’s need for a pursuer. She is a Cold War sketch.
The Craft Is Real, the Script Is Not
The production did the work. Shooting began June 18, 2007, in New Mexico, New Haven, Connecticut, Hawaii and Fresno, California, plus sound stages in Los Angeles.
The crew used traditional stunt work instead of computer-generated stunt doubles, to maintain continuity with the previous films. Cinematographer Janusz Kamiński studied Douglas Slocombe’s style from the previous films.
The script went through many hands. Jeb Stuart, Jeffrey Boam, Frank Darabont, Lucas and Nathanson wrote drafts before Koepp’s version satisfied the producers. That history shows on screen. The film feels assembled rather than driven.
The premiere was at the 61st Cannes Film Festival on May 18, 2008. Paramount Pictures released it in the United States on May 22. It received generally positive reviews from critics.
What Kingdom of the Crystal Skull Gets Right
The film is not a failure of craft. It is a failure of nerve.
The refrigerator survives because the movie never decides whether it wants to be a 1950s B-movie tribute or a straight Indiana Jones picture. It tries both. The alien plot and the Cold War setting belong to one film. The bullwhip, the hat and Marion Ravenwood belong to another. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull never makes them the same film.
The strongest choice is bringing Marion back. Allen’s return gives the movie an emotional center it otherwise lacks, and the reveal that Mutt is her son gives Jones something to lose. The film does not do enough with it.
The weakest choice is scale. The previous films sent Jones after artifacts with clear stakes. This one sends him after a telepathic skull tied to a lost city, and the stakes become abstract. Spalko wants to broadcast Soviet propaganda into American minds. That is a plan, not a threat a viewer can feel.
Ford is good. He is always good in this role. He moves like a man who knows exactly who this character is, and the film’s decision to let him be 64 rather than pretend otherwise is correct. But charisma cannot carry a plot that keeps changing its mind.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a watchable, well-made, frequently frustrating sequel. It honors Ford and Allen. It wastes Blanchett, Winstone, Hurt and Broadbent. It remembers the hat and forgets the danger. The adventure continues, but it does not earn the return.
6.0/10 (TMDB audience score, 9237 votes).
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