Even Though It’s Indy, This One’s an Iffy

Feature Time: 122 min.
Studio: Paramount
Rating: PG-13
Format: Blu-Ray
SRP: $39.99

FEATURE: C+

If Hollywood has taught us one thing it’s that “The End” is never really the end. Indiana Jones was last seen riding off into the sunset at the end of The Last Crusade. If one person, or in this case, three want to make a sequel bad enough, it will happen. Really, who’s going to stop Steven Speilberg, George Lucas, and Harrison Ford from making a fourth film? Set it in the 1957, the Nazis could no longer pose a threat. The cold war was in full bloom, so it made sense for the Russians to be the antagonists. This particular collection of the Red Army, though, act more like a bumbling circus act. (SPOILERS AHEAD)

Cate Blanchett plays Irinia Spalko, as a Russian Colonel and doctor of science who wants Indiana Jones to track down something that could be the weapon to rival the atomic bomb. Part of it is located in Area 51 and if you can’t guess where this is headed by now, “Trust No One.” A young derring do-gooder named Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf) also seeks out Jones to deliver a cryptic message from his former colleague Henry Oxley (John Hurt) that would lead to the discovery of another mysterious artifact that no archaeologist could resist finding and be another relic Spalko needs for her plans.

It’s a fantastic leap for the audience to see Indy jumping booby trapped pits of death or running from a rolling stone, but to see him mix it up with the skeletons of little green men? It should come to no surprise to anyone familiar with Speilberg’s body of work. He’s fascinated with two themes, aliens and World War II. With the latter unavailable to him and a script co-written by Lucas–fresh off his Star Wars prequels–aliens found their way into the script, inter-dimensional aliens. To their credit the parts made sense on paper, the science fiction aspect wasn’t so far-fetched because the scientific advances were a reality with the space race and nuclear research. You’re either going to get hung up on it, or you’re going to just go with it and enjoy the film. Despite this, the other ingredients were present: non-stop adventure, lots of shit blowing up, punches thrown, and even a reunion with Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) who turns out to be Mutt’s mother–Ah, the plot thickens. No, not really. When Indy and Marion exchange their first pleasantries, the film becomes a campy flashback to the prequels and the adventure finally begins, and a dog and cat chase ensues through the jungle on a one-way trip to the Crystal Skulls’ origin–Akator, Peru.

In the finest Indiana Jones fashion, there are always a few scenes where a suspension of disbelief is mandatory to get you to the next scene–there’s a lot here to suspend. When Jones escapes Area 51 he wanders on a bomb testing site and climbs into a lead lined refrigerator just before the moment of detonation and is strong enough to hold the door tight enough to survive. A young Indiana Jones, maybe. This incarnation… no way. In Peru, Mutt and Indy are ambushed twice by a horde of native warriors and after a brief bit of Robin Hood action, the warriors disappear never to be seen again. And in one of the biggest groan moments of the film sees Mutt swinging on vines like George of the Jungle with a pack of monkeys keeping up with jeeps at full speed. Honestly, Mr. Speilberg (*ahem* If I may call you, Mister)–shame on you. Science fiction always involves some leaps of faith, even bigger leaps than Jesus Christ (see The Last Crusade) but here the Henry Jones crew got carried away. The skulls of aliens are masters at mind control and the ending is indecently convoluted and strays from the strength of the earlier films, which is the study of human history.

Even though Lucas has contributed more to filmmaking with Industrial Light & Magic and Skywalker Sound Ranch, his pairing with Speilberg usually results in a satisfying popcorn movie and that goal was moderately accomplished. A subpar effort by them is still worth as much as some filmmakers’ best. We’re also led to believe that LaBeouf could reprise the role for the next generation because he’s got the… genetic makeup, but I hope that someone has enough sense to end that speculation quick. Better than Temple of Doom, but definitely falling well short of The Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull has enough in it to lovingly revisit the Indiana Jones and family, warts and all.

PRESENTATION: A-

Like the older DVDs, “Raiders March” ramps up with a plane traveling across a map. An animation of vines, hieroglyphics, and scenes of the film rush by as users can navigate through the menus across the bottom. The feature itself has 16 chapters with the option to tag bookmarks. Between menu selections a white silhouette of Indy cracking the whip is the loading screen, and the scroll bar for fast-forwarding/rewinding is modeled like an ancient artifact–both nice subtle details. White subtitles are available in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese.

Packaging bears an always-slick Drew Struzan cover with a bit of holographic sheen where it’s gold and white. Inside, each side of the case holds a disc–blu-ray have been much easier to store than DVDs. Some of the retail 2-disc exclusives are not so basic. Best Buy has a replica Crystal Skull case packaged with a $25 Gift Card for Sideshowcollectibles.com, Circuit City has two lithographs of concept art, Kmart & Sears has four LEGO mini-posters replicating the original theatrical poster from all four films, Target has a hardcover 80-pg picture book from Palace Press, and Trans World has an exclusive Steelbook Case. Hunt down what it is you fancy or stick with a basic case if you don’t get into package design.

VIDEO: A

Speilberg does make a great adventure film and shoots this in 2.35:1 aspect ratio and transfered to blu-ray by way of MPEG-4 AVC 1080p. The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is not an overly dark film but when it needs to, like in the two Nazca, Peru night scenes, the blacks really reproduce with great contrast. These scenes are particularly good for detail with cobwebs, and human skulls, stone textures. But the rest of the film is shot outdoors with warm, and is best remembered for its golden and rose overtones. The slight difference in the dark green Russian costumes and Indy’s brown leather is distinguishable when next to each other and the crystal skulls glow brilliant. The climax of the film has all sorts of rich hues and gold details that pop out on the screen. Even though this is a film made just last year, it looks like it belongs with the previous three films. Whether that’s due to great cinematography or digital lighting isn’t so much the issue as much as it doesn’t stick out like a sore compared to its predecessors. Nothing’s been enhanced edge-wise, nor does it need to be. It’s just a pleasant and consistent visual experience.

AUDIO: A

For an action film this is a good, solid English 5.1 Dolby Digital True-HD soundtrack that covers all the basics. Movement in the front dominate most of the sound, but the side-to-side is (excuse the pun) crystal. Rear speakers will get some work with spatial effects in the action sequences and John Williams magnificent score wraps around all the channels. Explosions rock the room, bullets zip and water rushes by. However, it doesn’t go overboard or blow your eardrums away; it just sounds right in all the crucial moments. Dialogue is clear, ranging from plenty of low-level conversation to loud out-of-breath shouting. Technically, this is a top-notch disc.

EXTRAS: A-

With the exception of an audio commentary (which Speilberg rarely does) there’s enough quality extras to pick through both discs for days. All featurettes are in 1080i HD and 2.0 DD and have optional white subtitles.

Disc One

THE RETURN OF A LEGEND () details the saga of trying to get the fourth film made; everything from trying to convince Speilberg that going back to the well would not be a mistake, could Ford actually pull off another Indy movie physically, to coming up with a justifiable title. This was a good featurette because one wonders just how some projects get made, and why some obvious ones seem to never get made. PRE-PRODUCTION (11:44) is the first of a handful of 10-20 minute behind-the-scene material. In what’s the earliest captured work, Speilberg sketches out scenes crudely establishing camera angles where an animatic is produced in the Maya animation program. INDIANA JONES TIMELINE is a series of three navigational timelines of various multimedia showing the chronology of the story, the history within the story, and the production schedule and the connection between all three through video clips and brief synopsis. To complete disc one extras are two THEATRICAL TRAILERS in 1080p, 5.1 Dolby True-HD, which still hold up as trailers well-done. I recall seeing these in the theaters and remembering what a short montage of clips set to a John Williams score is plenty enough to want more.

Disc Two

The biggest and best of all the features is the PRODUCTION DIARY: MAKING “KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL (1:20:52) that can be viewed as one giant slug or six separate chunks. A lot of it is following the principle photography from New Mexico, to Connecticut, to Hawaii. If there were ever a secure job in Hollywood it would have been a member of the Indiana Jones crew. Nearly 20 years after The Last Crusade (1989), Speilberg assembled many of the same people from the original art direction but with the latest technology seen in the EFFECTS OF INDY (22:42). As stated in the video section, an important part of making this film was making it feel like it was related to the previous three. Tasteful computer graphics, compositors, and digital lighting helped achieve that. Other scenes shown were the atomic bomb test, the jungle shoot and the ant sequence. Longtime fans know that there is some creepy pest scene (i.e. snakes, rats) and here it was ants and with the magic of modeling and computer intelligence, they were able to recreate the behavior of the picnic pests and make it seem like they can devour a human. At one point, Spielberg looks at an early test screening and says, “There’s just not enough ants…” In current filmmaking processes it’s an easy task solved.

I am fascinated with foley artists, composers and the sound element of making films, so ADVENTURES IN POST PRODUCTION (12:41) got a few repeat viewings from me. Ben Burtt (Sound Designer/Supervising Sound Editor) created library of sounds from the franchise and he was able to pull from that archive of sound effects as well as create new ones on the computer and by hand. The king of epic adventure scores, John Williams also speaks about creating theme music for each character and what his inspiration was for the catchy and now legendary “Raiders March” theme. Ten minutes is too short a time to spend on the late Stan Winston and his company’s work, having been responsible for countless feats of movie magic, but the creation of the skulls and skeletons are explored in-depth in CRYSTAL SKULLS (10:10). Watch how the transformation of the actors in Akator with skin emblems and mud in WARRIOR MAKEUP (5:34). In ICONIC PROPS (10:00), prop designers talk about creating and finding the correct props to remain consistent with the other films like the Hat and Knapsack. Some props were brought back like the original Ark. CLOSING TEAM INDY (3:41) is simply a roll call of the principle people behind the franchise and give a face to the names, which, unless you’re related to or know them, will not be a special many will revisit. The last featurettes to explore are the PRE-VISUALIZATION SEQUENCES (14:17), which are the animatic shorts for the Area 51 Escape, the Jungle Chase and the Ants Attack. Like discovering the Lost Ark itself, the GALLERIES is a massive collection of literally hundreds and hundreds of images to thumb through including storyboards, close-ups, candid shots, make-up, models, conceptual art, and and costumes. It’s a lot to take in one sitting so take it in bits and pieces and zoom in when you can on some of the more elaborate stills from the art department.

The Final Crusade – Overall Shock Value: B–

There was some skepticism on whether or not another quality Indiana Jones film could or should be made. Most of the concern on whether or not Harrison Ford could still do the action scenes, but in reality he had just as much spit and fire as he did twenty years ago. The weakest link was the story put together by George Lucas, Jeff Nathanson and David Koepp. Old world archaeology and little green men is not the smoothest juxtaposition. But that said, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull should satisfy the masses especially if you can disconnect the logic button. At the very least, it’s a technically great blu-ray with a great transfer and lively audio mix and should provide lots of fun nights in home theaters everywhere.