Indiana Jones and the Internet of the Confounding Critics

Word to T.S. Eliot*, April truly is the cruelest month for moviegoers. In preparation for the big releases, film fans have to sit through Hollywood's dumping ground (or wastelands, as it were) in anticipation of the summer blockbuster schedule. It is a time comperable to a sports fan's July, when the MLB is marching through its mid-summer malaise, and neither the NBA, NFL, nor, hell, NHL are active save drafts or arrests.

Hopefully, just like that time the call girl you ordered ended up looking more Park Ji-Yoon (either one; take your pick) than Park Ji-Seong, the films you've been waiting for -- in some cases decades -- will live up to your expectations. If they don't, the results can be anywhere from mildly disappointing or frustrating to, in the case of some enfant terrible fanboys, life-threatening. Or George Lucas life-threatening. I'm not sure which is more desirable.

Of course that last bit is a joke, but let me be perfectly honest: I don't recall such prior fan displeasure reaching the sweltering Hell fire of May, 1999, when George Lucas's...Oh, hell, you know the fucking movie. In my own case, I went to see Phantom Menace on opening night, was perfectly elated afterwards, then, as the night slowly progressed and I talked about the film with the friend I saw it with, a feeling of profound and bitter disappointment set in. I'd like to think I woke up the next morning feeling hungover, but the stone-cold truth is that I hated myself for self-deception. (Tomorrow, I'll hate myself for massive hyphen usage when I wake up.)

I am not by far the only one. Episode I isn't merely a bad Star Wars movie, it's a terrible, terrible piece of filmmaking. I would rewatch it twice; the first time when it was released to video, the second after the release of Revenge of the Sith. Upon second viewing I saw how deeply misguided I was in my original opinion; I wanted to destroy every available film print and digital copy upon my third. (And that's a fairly strong belief from someone who actually liked Eps II and III.)

But the summer movie season has become Christmas writ large for movie lovers. I was convinced when I was a kid that my parents didn't get me a Red Ryder BB gun not because, as they said, I'd shoot my eye out, but because they hated me and looked upon my very existence with contempt. Now that I'm a grown-up and no longer receive Christmas or birthday presents that I don't buy for myself**, that upcoming summer film better knock my socks off and rekindle the magic, or somebody's gonna get called a penis toucher on an Internet message board.

I know I'm getting carried away and that a lot of very smart people are able to look critically on both their fanatic love of certain films and film franchises, but when the four main CHUD.com writers, all who eschew fanboy uber-bitching, decided to write an article titled 'Indiana Jones Post-Mortem,' I have to say I was a little flabbergasted. Fuck that, a lot. It's one thing to dislike a film; it's another to trash one; and it's a completely-fucking-other thing to hold a geek support group on the Internet because a movie didn't live up to your expectations. That's dumb. Capital D.

Mostly, though, I'm very surprised that the CHUD staff reacted so negatively toward Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. For months they seemed to hint that the film is disappointing (sight unseen, mind you), which, if you listen to the PKasts (eff you if you don't), I relayed with much apprehension to Kmart, who subsequently told me to stuff it. Still, like mostly everyone else, I was prepared to see the fourth Indiana Jones installment regardless of whether it was dubbed "great" or "merely passable". I love Raiders of the Lost Ark like Gene Simmons loves his lick size, but I was still in primary school when I saw Temple of Doom and barely remember it, and The Last Crusade, although I loved it in the fifth grade when I saw it on opening day, has never beckoned me for a revisiting. (My cell number is 010-3321-4968, Last Crusade. Please give a call.)

So here we are. And here's where I try to figure out the complaints people -- and molemen; mostly molemen -- have against Indy IV. Kmart and I will probably (read: definitely) talk more about the film in a future PKast, but let it be known that a) my brother from another father psychically called me the moment I returned home from my matinee viewing so we could briefly agree that Crystal Skull is a great movie (classic, no), and that b) I'm getting really fucking tired of seeing that Asian bitch in the University of Phoenix ads on dictionary.com.

That's not Indiana Jones! He's an afterthought of a character. And Indy getting married is heresy.

As I told Kmart on Sunday, it felt weird seeing Ford play Indy after almost twenty years, and it didn't help that in the opening scene he talks, ostensibly, so the Russians can't read his lips. (Intentional, perhaps?) As the movie progressed, Ford felt more and more like Indy, which is weird, because AS I TOLD KMART, the scenes weren't shot in sequence. So it wasn't Ford's acting that was off at the beginning; it was that I had to adjust my (fly) eyes after so many years away.

As for Indy not being a proactive whip-cracker, let us remember that the single-greatest scene in the Indiana Jones films occurs in Raiders when Jones, confronted by a sword-wielding Arab, pulls out a gun and takes the shortest of shortcuts. There's no non-action scene in Crystal Skull to rival that slice of efficiency, but Jones, at least to me, has always been more about taking the easiest possible route toward resolving conflict rather than facing trouble head on. (Word to bazookas.) And it's pretty darn obvious that the age angle was being played up, and in a very classy way I might add. Maybe it's me at 30 and afraid of death speaking, but that aspect was handled very well, with no cringe-worthy old man jokes.

(Mutt's "What are you, eighty?" cracked me up, because the scene and the timing is so perfect.)

And Indiana Jones as a married man? Jesus, the guy is sixty-five years old! Let him get some steady!

Indy isn't James Bond; whereas Bond is a skirt-chasing bird catcher, women have always fallen into Indy's lap without his pursuit. Isn't it kinda nifty that the only one who matters to the character and to Indiana Jones aficionados falls into his lap again, and that they live happily ever after?

There's too much exposition! The villain sucks!

I've read a number of reviews stating the film contains too many scenes of straight-out dialogue, as though its pace suffers. I cry bullshit. You want a film with scenes of stiff dialogue, watch Speed Racer (which I fully endorse, by the way). The dialogue, while never balls-out compelling, is effective and never bogs the film down, and the pace, oh boy. As much as I love Iron Man (you'll see what I'm doing in a sec), Crystal Skull trumps it as far as pacing goes.

I don't know what else Cate Blanchett's Irina Spalko could have been other than the most memorable Indiana Jones villain not named Belloq or Toht. Those latter fellows had the distinction of being bad-ass Nazis, perhaps suitable for their time, but I for one appreciated that Spalko wasn't a blood-hungry Red (which is why the KGB agents chasing Indy and Mutt around the university campus bugged me a little) and instead a woman with a definite goal who uses Indy to further her means yet doesn't hold any grudges, the same way Indy, in the film's first major scene, doesn't adamantly refuse to help out Spalko and her Commie comrades. (is that redundant?) Both know what the other wants, and I found the mutual, unspoken connection they share throughout the film engaging. I kinda liked that I felt a little sorry for Spalko when she gave up the ghost, which, if we're going for an old-man's theme of forgiveness and atonement, fits like a lamb-skin condom. To boot, Spalko is a much better villain the the Iron Monger. As much as I love Iron Man. (Can you see it yet?)

Aliens don't belong in an Indiana Jones movie!

No, full-frontal male nudity doesn't fit in an Indiana Jones movie. Aliens? Par for the course in a series of films that twice uses religious artifacts as their Maltese Falcons. The Ark of the Covenant is completely acceptable, but an alien saucer? Hold the mayo!

See, what's great about Crystal Skull is that it embraces everything that was suspicious about the time period. Mind-reading Russians. Double agents. Aliens from outer space. And that's what makes me appreciate Crystal Skull even more. For while it's been nineteen years since the last Indiana Jones installment, and a large portion of fandom is stuck (on stupid) in the ten-year time frame of the first three films, it feels good to see Indiana Jones still doing what he does best so many years later: saving the world from mass extinction by the hands of manic threats.

I can't wait to see Shia LaBouf as Henry Jones III save the planet from a dirty bomb, or massive fan death, in 2032.

Respect your elders.

What I didn't like

First and foremost, Shia's vine-swinging adventure (which actually coulda -- call me crazy -- worked if he weren't the supporting hero, and if it didn't Mehmet Okur during an already-thrilling action sequence); Gophers as punchlines; Lead-lined refrigerators as protection against a nuclear bomb (the set-up, however, is brilliant); the titular crystal skull looking like a massive Christmas tree ornament.

That's it. Everyone who's written a negative review of this movie will regret it in a month.


* That glove still fits.

** Wii? Oui!