INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL (2008)

  

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *cosmological, sociological *

On the DVD of SKULL the film's director Steven Spielberg asserted that he resisted for many years the appeals of various people, including his collaborators on previous INDIANA JONES films, Harrison Ford and George Lucas, to make another film in the series. As far as he was concerned, the series had been concluded by 1989's LAST CRUSADE film. Further, Lucas wanted to do a story in which the globetrotting hero encountered aliens, and Spielberg felt he'd done enough alien movies in his career. But over time, Ford and Lucas essentially wore down Spielberg, and he consented to direct Lucas's draft script, completed with another writer and then transformed into a screenplay by David Koepp. 

I didn't like SKULL then any more than I do now, but the film made a handsome profit. The character, born in 1899. was not quite as old as the real-life actor was in 2008, so the script could credibly give the audience what it wanted: an Indiana Jones still heavily invested in daredevil action. I contrast this with the many recent complaints about the deportment of Jones in the opening scenes of INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY, in which he's seen as having given up the road of adventure for the confines of the classroom--though that part of his life seemed to be ending as well. It didn't matter that the Indiana of 1969 was at least seventy; audiences didn't want an Indy who got old.

Lucas and Spielberg were children whose adolescent outlooks were largely formed by the 1950s, which was, among other things, the period in which they both began watching old film serials on television. The script thus dutifully piles on lots of 1950s touchstones: motorcycle-riding juveniles, the Cold War, and alien invaders, though here the invaders are seen through the lens of the "ancient astronauts" fad of the 1970s. What the script does not provide is any sense of any of these cultural shifts mean to the hero, who, being born of the "greatest generation," ought to have shown a little more conflict about the rise of the baby-boomer ethos. All we get is a mention of the fact that Indy doesn't like Russians because he and his sometimes-turncoat pal Mac (Ray Winstone) used to run counter-intelligence on the Soviets during World War II. 

So Indy and Mac are drafted by a troop of Russians who seem to have no trouble getting away with major acts of violence in 1950s metropolitan cities. In command of the troop is Colonel Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett), an expert on matters psychic, and she wants Indy to help her solve an archaeological puzzle in Peru. The solution, she believes, will give her access to ancient alien mysteries and enable Communism to conquer the world. Indy manages to escape captivity in Hanger 18, betrayal by his fellow adventurer Mac, and near-annihilation by a nuclear bomb.

But Indy never gives up on friends. He's approached by leather-jacketed Mutt Williams (Shia LeBouef), who tells the hero that Indy's old colleague "Ox" Oxley (John Hurt) has been abducted by Russians in Peru, as has Mutt's mother "Mary Williams." After another pointless escape from Soviet agents, Indy and Mutt make their way to Peru (where Mutt continues wearing his leather jacket in the South American heat). Indy solves a puzzle and finds a skull made of crystal, though it looks like it belongs to an ape with an elongated skull. Indy comments on the way it was carved, which doesn't make much sense when it later appears to be an organic remnant. 

The Russians catch Indy and Mutt, and at the Russian camp Indy is reunited with Ox and with "Mary," who is Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) under her married name. Eventually the four good guys escape the Russkies and Indy learns that Mutt is his natural son, produced by his bun being in Marion's oven at the time that Indy left Marion at the altar over fifteen years ago. All this familial drama is tossed off with a lot of fatuous jokes, but the very fact that Lucas and Spielberg, acting through Koepp, couldn't deal with such issues speaks somewhat to things they might not have wanted to say outright.

More daredevil escapes ensue-- pursuit by Amazonian killer ants, a plunge over a waterfall-- and eventually everyone involves ends up at a lost temple built by aliens and inhabited by their crystal skeletons. Irina pays the price for messing with things outside her ken, and Indy finally makes up for leaving Marion at the altar by making an honest woman of her-- until the next time they break up.

One reason SKULL may have made money is that Spielberg kept the costs down, unlike DIAL, and he did this by essentially repeating similar stunts in different environments. Unlike RAIDERS, where no stunt-type is repeated, SKULL has three separate scenes in which Indy and his foes are barreling from one spot to another in cars and/or motorbikes. The one in the Amazon jungle is at least watchable, but I could have done without the one set within Hangar 18. I suppose Indy escaping a nuclear blast in a refrigerator was technically original. But it strained credibility so much that the game was hardly worth the candle. 

Ford handles his stunts well enough, including the almost de rigeur fight with a bigger opponent, and LeBoeuf is okay in a fight-scene with Blanchett, who engages in both armed and unarmed combat. Feisty Marion (also looking good in her fifties) doesn't get to do anything but a lot of daredevil driving, in marked contrast to her varied stunts throughout RAIDERS. Hurt and Winstone are mostly just along for the ride.

The "ancient astronauts" are a mystery without a good resolution, though I liked a line in which Indy suggests that tribal humans bound their own skulls to resemble their "gods." It's strange that Lucas and Spielberg would make so much of the aliens seen in fifties sci-fi films, and yet portray SKULL's aliens as a bunch of dead gods whose motives for coming to Earth remain obscure-- again, more of a seventies trope than one from the fifties.

The most interesting thing about the bad family dramatics of SKULL is that they do reveal that Lucas and Spielberg intuited-- but could not quite put into words-- the immaturity of their aging hero. The only thing we're told as to why Indy deserted Marion is because she never let him win an argument. Really? LAST CRUSADE was a little more venturesome in the psychology department, but Lucas and Spielberg couldn't follow through on that concept, except under cover of concealing jokiness. That indirect psychological comment, as well as a comparison of Communism to the aliens' hive-mind, are the only reasons I give SKULL a fair mythicity grade.