A good head for Hollywood
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (M)
The obligatory henchmen toss an embattled, bloodied figure to the ground. Gingerly (he is a senior citizen, after all), our hero girds his loins, picks himself up and plonks a dusty fedora back on his scone. Indiana Jones, rising to face his foes. You can't putt a price to that kinda brand recognition and character identification.
Well, actually, you can. The few seconds of screen time it takes to reintroduce Indian Jones (65-year-old Harrison Ford) would cost a few thousand bucks per second, as part of the US$185 million Paramount Pictures invested into Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. And that’s not counting the US$150 million the moguls have spent marketing the action flick around the world. The bottom line (somewhat conservative, judging on the billions gleaned from the first three films) is that the filmmakers need some US$400 million to feel the movie’s a hit. By the 27th of May it had already made more than US$305, 962,920. That suggests Spielberg, Lucas etc. know (and have always known) they are on a winner with the Jones boy.
I was one of the favoured few to enjoy Indy’s latest (but possibly not ‘last’) romp before it premiered; I can happily report the old bloke can still crack his whip.
It's 1957 and part-time (now tenured) archaeology professor Henry ‘Indiana’ Jones Jr. is yet again in the wars, this time at the hands of those unamused Cold warriors the 'Ruskies, led by Joe Stalin's favourite spymaster, Irana Spalko (a beautifully over-the-top Cate Blanchett).
The common quarry is an elongated Inca relic—a mysterious crystal skull of unknown properties and origins. Intrigued? Don't get too obsessed; plots have always been secondary (if not inconsequential) to the Indiana action sequences. Indy, old spy mate Mac (Ray Winstone) and James Dean wannabe 'Mutt' (Shia LaBeouf) end up with othere odds and bods in Peru, where Indy is reunited with the love of his life, Marion Ravenwood (from Raiders, reprised by Karen Allen).
See Indy run. See Indy duck. See Indy kapow! his way past local opposition and shrink from snakes, bugs and assorted ills as he tries to retrieve the seemingly otherworldly skull.
There are classic stunts, punch-ups, car and motorbike chases, explosions, prat falls and one-liners, more car chases, and assorted 'hoo boy' moments.
It was back in 1989, with The Last Crusade alongside retired thespian Sean Connery, playing as his dad, that we last saw this character, so people were a bit curious as toi how Indy would shape up so long after his last hurrah. (Connery was no coincidence in casting, by the way—Indy creator George Lucas has stated the character was designed as ‘an “Everyman” version of James Bond’.)
The greatest link between the films, beyond the homage to the action serials of the 1930s, is the plot device (or, as Spielberg explains in Hitchkockian terms, the ‘McGuffin’) that brings Indy closer to God and the search for the divine. Messers Lucas, Spielberg, Ford and composer John Williams hit creative paydirt when Indy first went digging around for religious treasures in 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark (the ark of the covenant being the biblical luggage that contained the Ten Commandments and other paraphernalia of the Jewish faith).
Indy’s derring-do has always revolved around the mysteries of faith and the search for answers. The evil ‘thuggee’ cult was tackled head on in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), while Indy tag-teamed with Dr Henry Jones Sr (Connery) to pursue Christ’s legendary cup—the Holy Grail—in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.
If prayer is said to be the last resort of the scoundrel, then God is the first resort of popular filmmakers. It’s often the ‘big picture questions’ of faith and doubt that inspire the big (motion) pictures.
Welcome back to the big screen, Indy; long time no glee.
Open House film reviewer Barry Gittins is editor of On Fire magazine, and a regular reviewer for the Salvos' Warcry magazine: www.salvationarmy.org.au/warcry
