A Welcome Return by an Old Friend

SPOILER FREE

First let me start out by saying just how geeked out I was by the release of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. While Star Wars definitely holds a special place for me, like so many others the Indiana Jones movies are of a different status – these could really happen (sort of).

So it was with great anticipation that I went to see the latest installment at midnight last Wednesday. I read nothing about the movie and allowed myself only to view the official trailers as to not learn anything about the movie.

To be honest, I was anticipating another chapter of the 1930’s-style serialization. Instead I got something completely different, not to say that was a bad thing. Steven Spielberg realizing the intelligence of movie goers would not allow him to play Harrison Ford off as a 30-something, he set the movie 19 years after The Last Crusade (Incidentally, that is the amount of actual real time that has passed as well).

So George Lucas and Spielberg made an Indiana Jones adventures that reflects 1950s happenings and such – i.e. The Cold War and other things that I will not get into as not to spoil it.

All that being said I was not disappointed with the latest and perhaps final chapter of the saga. As soon as the movie starts, Ford is wearing the trademark fedora and jacket and basically getting himself in over-his-head. He returns to the character with the ease of well, slipping on that jacket.

Karen Allen’s return as Marion Ravenwood also worked really well, and the on-screen chemistry she shares with Ford has not waned after all these years.

Shia LeBeouf wasgood but at times seemed a little out of place like he was trying to still figure out how he was cast in this movie. Cate Blanchett was magnificent in what I believe to be her first action role.

My only problem, and I guess the way this was written you could tell this has all been a set up, was with the script. It was a fun, summer adventure movie, which had none of the passion of the original films. Something was missing from Indiana Jones and it was not the last 19 years. He did not have the same charisma, charm and dialogue that he had the previous three flicks.

I am all for the passage of time and how it changes people, but I think to take those traits away from both Ford and Indy left me feeling like I missed something.

Again, that being said it was a fun ride that I highly recommend. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a nice valentine to the series and seems to wrap up the life of Indiana Jones. There is a scene at the end where you could possibly see the passing of the torch to LeBeouf’s Mutt Williams, but instead I think you actually will see that in the end, the only person who is Indiana Jones is Indiana Jones (and Ford).