Tabula Rasa

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a film that needs no introduction and if it does then I don’t know why you’re reading this. It’s been out for a while so most people have seen it and those who haven’t may already be aware of the reputation it’s garnered because of a particular scene that has been immortalized in a new phrase that is currently doing the rounds of the internet.

Skip to the end: the film’s not bad but it’s not great either.

Indy IV certainly isn’t as terrible as some of the hyperbole filled, “raped childhood” reviews would have you believe. I thought it was perfectly entertaining – hell, it’s Indiana Jones and quite frankly, it ticks all the right boxes – but it did lack a certain something; an energy, a sparkle, a razzmatazz that the others, for the most part, had. It also lacked in any distinctly memorable characterization and I will concur with an accusation that has been fairly levelled at the film in that it didn’t play to the strength of its cast – particularly the magnificent John Hurt who was given so little material to work with that I’m not sure it was worth his time being on the screen and yet it could have been fantastic role in keeping with characters such as Sallah or Marcus Brody. Similarly Karen Allen’s reprisal of Marion Ravenwood was ultimately forgettable too.

However, the most problematic aspect of the film for me was simply that it rehashed the same themes as Last Crusade. I’m sure that it might have seemed an interesting idea to see that Henry Jones Jr treated his own son in a similar way to how Henry Jones Sr treated him but we’ve been there already and the interplay between Sean Connery and Harrison Ford was far more believable, far funnier and much better done than it was here.

Still, I can’t say I didn’t enjoy it because I did. It’s the old fedora wearing, whip cracking adventurer that we love doing what he does best and that’s fine by me.

As for that scene which quite frankly needs to be addressed and my opinion is that too much has been made of it. This is Indiana Jones – the same man who outruns giant boulders, travels great distances by holding on to submarine conning towers, jumps out of planes with nothing but an inflatable raft before sledding down said mountain in the very same, who races (and jumps) mine carts through tunnels, survives falling rope bridges and gets passed in tunnels by wingless Messerschmitts. There isn’t a problem here – get over it.

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