3rd June, 2008

DAVID ADAMS

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (M)

In A Word: Familiar

Indy’s back and, while it’s an overstatement to say he’s bigger and better than ever, fans will nonetheless enjoy his return.

The fourth film in the adventures of the whip-wielding archaeologist, Dr Henry “Indiana" Jones Jr, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull picks up some 19 years after the last movie - The Last Crusade - left off.

It’s the Fifties and, with the Nazi’s gone, the film opens with a much older Indy (played now by a 65-year-old Harrison Ford) thrown into action with his new "old buddy" 'Mac' McHale (Ray Winstone) against a new nemesis - the thickly accented KGB agent Irina Spalko (played by Cate Blanchett) - against the background of the nuclear arms race and McCarthyism.

Indy manages to escape but soon meets up with Spalko and her friends as he and his new sidekick, a leather clad ‘Rebel Without A Cause’ known as Mutt (played by Shia LaBeouf), set off to South America on a quest to find Professor Oxley, an old colleague of Indy’s played by John Hurt, and Mutt’s mother (who turns out to be Indy’s old friend Marion Ravenwood - remember Raiders of the Lost Ark? - played by Karen Allen).

Indy soon finds his friends along with a mysterious crystal skull which they decide (for reasons the film will make clear) to return to its hidden home - the legendary city of Akator (aka El Dorado) - buried deep within the South American jungle.

Naturally, Spalko and her companions also want to possess the crystal skull and find it’s home, and so Indy and his companions find themselves locked in a life and death race with the Russians.

There is action aplenty here, much as in the previous films and, in a similar vein (remember the scene near the start of The Temple of Doom when Indy and his companions drop out of the sky in an inflatable raft?), they stretch credulity in a comic fashion.

Movies have come a long way since Indy first graced the big screen in Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981 but fans will be happy to know that director Steven Spielberg has ensured Indy remains largely the same (albeit an older, slightly less able to pull off the swagger, version) as does the endless action, good-natured humour and occasional jump-in-your-seat shock that characterised the first three films.

The Crystal Skull does take Indy into some odd news realms (some might say even more far-fetched than his previous adventures), and the ending, with a fairly predictable plotline and some really corny dialogue, was a little disappointing, but Indiana Jones is still all about pure entertainment.

Don’t expect anything new here (yes, Indy always wins the day, and even the plot’s one real ‘surprise’ is fairly obvious from the start). But then, for fans of Indy, it’s the predictability which is a big part of the appeal.

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