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Even for a preview audience, jazzed on free popcorn and the chance to catch a summer blockbuster days early, the waves of cheering and the palpable sense of sheer jubilation that went up from the crowd once the mountain in its Paramount logo did its dissolve (this time to the lowly dirt-mound home of a prairie dog), was something to behold. It wasn’t quite the roar that one would have expected from those keyed-up to see a new Star Wars flick, but it was certainly a more intense outpouring of anticipation than one sees at such box-office-stoking events. There was something else going on there besides the return of a beloved film icon whom many of us had first seen before even exiting grammar school. Maybe they actually don’t make ‘em like they used to.
In any event, the audience’s pent-up thrill upon seeing Indiana Jones first appear on screen and put on that hat (in heroic shadow of course) is quickly compounded by a clutch of tightly shot and smartly fun sequences that come rocketing out of the screen one after another. With its 1950s setting allowing Harrison Ford to act his age, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull also wastes no time in digging into the era’s other obsessions: fast cars, aliens, nuclear war, rock and roll, and of course villainous Commies. It’s impressive enough that Spielberg manages to act as though it hadn’t been over a decade since he’d last directed an utter popcorn picture (The Lost World), but just as impressive is the fact that Ford coasts so comfortably through this performance it’s as though he’d barely gotten out of wardrobe from 1989’s Last Crusade. Consider this: when last we saw Indy, Harrison Ford still had Presumed Innocent, Air Force One, a couple Tom Clancy adaptations, and several late-period misfires ahead of him. But here he is, serving up haymakers to the bad guys, quipping with his smart-ass sidekick, and regularly getting the tar smacked out of him, as though not a day had passed.
Of course, nothing great lasts forever in film these days, and so the energy began to leak out of the theater. By the time the last third of David Koepp’s strangely laborious screenplay creaked into place, all the frenetic chase scenes and swiftly accumulating guest performers (Jim Broadbent, Ray Winstone, John Hurt, to name a few) couldn’t erase the feeling of tedium; much the same as one experiences when watching, say, Temple of Doom, which Kingdom of the Crystal Skull easily tops. When the film coasts into its all-too-pat finale, the applause is notedly muted, though still genuine.
Some things about Kingdom of the Crystal Skull are nearly irrefutable. First, Cate Blanchett does a fantastic Greta Garbo. Second, swarms of deadly ants are possibly scarier than tombs full of venomous asps. But most important is this: the audience opened their hearts and expectations to this film because “they” (Hollywood) in fact doesn’t make them like they used to. Maybe they never did. But with moviegoers facing a grim season of pallid CGI battle-toons like The Mummy: The Tomb of the Dragon Emperor and Prince Caspian, even the problematic adventures of one Indiana Jones can feel like a rich banquet in comparison.
