Nostalgia trumps imagination and joy.
Yes, Harrison Ford is 65 years old. There's a gauntness to his cheeks these days, and a steely grey to both the hair on his head and the stubble on his chin. But when he first appears on screen in
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
as the iconic archaeologist/adventurer, it's easy to imagine him 20 years younger.***image1***
More to the point, it's easy to imagine yourself 20 years younger. Such is the history that informs this first
Indiana Jones
film since 1989's
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
, that of a generation of moviegoers for whom
Raiders of the Lost Ark
was nearly as significant a touchstone as Star Wars. John Williams' rousing fanfare, the bullwhip and, yes, the fedora-these are the things that quicken the pulse. Their familiarity is
Kingdom
's blessing. And they are also its curse.
There's little point in speculating about what kind of response
Kingdom
might have inspired were it not carrying the expectations of a beloved franchise. It's a contraption built almost entirely out of its own legacy, even more pointedly self-referential than
Last Crusade
. In the opening set-piece that finds Indy in 1957 kidnapped by Russians seeking a mysterious artifact in a Nevada military base, a broken crate reveals the familiar profile of the Ark of the Covenant. Indy's infamous fear of snakes pops up as our protagonists journey to South America. Even Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) reappears to rekindle some love-hate banter. The plot details that have become a spoiler-rific Internet cottage industry hardly seem to be the point. Director Steven Spielberg and executive producer George Lucas know why we're here, and have no problem reminding us at regular intervals.
But much as they seem to understand the formula they're being asked to replicate, they don't seem to take much joy in it. Action sequences clip along ***image2***at a familiar pace and we get the requisite sequence involving massive quantities of some kind of creepy-crawly critter. But while the fight choreography occasionally rises to the occasion,
Kingdom
too rarely pops with genuine energy. So much feels forced: the squabbling between Indy and Mutt (Shia LaBeouf); the young man who solicits his aid to find Indy's old colleague Professor Oxley (John Hurt) and a valuable crystal skull; a South American graveyard encounter with shadowy natives apparently trained in parkour; the attempt to turn Soviet paranormal expert Irinia Spalko (Cate Blanchett) into a badass villain. Screenwriter David Koepp has built something out of the franchise's familiar pieces, but the pieces sometimes don't fit together.
It would be easy to make Ford's age the scapegoat but that's not the problem here. In fact, Ford's performance is one of the film's most satisfying elements, a twinkly return to the kind of roguish characters he played before he became a clench-jawed robot. He and Allen bring the story to life when it needs it most, and carry the nostalgia beyond perfunctory toward something that actually resonates. True, it's a bit ridiculous watching him still play the academic skeptic regarding supernatural forces but that have nothing to do with whether he can still take a punch with aplomb.
No, it's not Harrison Ford who feels creaky in
Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
; it's everything that has been constructed around him. Every one of the four Indy films involved over-the-top elements, but at their best, they earned latitude thanks to their light-footedness: the pinpoint editing of
Raiders;
the father-son dynamic of
Last Crusade
. This time, the creative team spends so much time telling us how wonderful it is that we're all here together again that it forgets to make us interested in what's actually happening. The star may seem revitalized, but those of us who were hoping to feel the same are left feeling…whipped.