In the summer of 1981, Raiders of the Lost Ark took movie theaters across America by storm. George Lucas and Steven Spielberg had delivered a roller coaster ride of an adventure movie, deeply inspired by the Saturday morning movie serials of the 1930s and 40s. With it's massive success at the box office there was no surprise that a sequel would soon follow and in 1984 Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was released and quickly disappointed fans of the first film. What Temple of Doom got wrong was a more slapstick style script with a muddled plotline too bizarre to follow, and the fate of any further sequels was in question. And then five years later in 1989, Spielberg and Lucas surprised us all by getting the film franchise back-on-track with what was then thought to be it's final episode. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade had forgone the silliness of the Temple of Doom and brought back a more recognizable villain in the form of the Third Reich, who along with the addition of Sean Connery to it's cast made for a great movie adventure. So now, nineteen years later, Lucas and Spielberg have decided to squeeze another offering out of the franchise by releasing Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull this past Memorial Day weekend. It's a project that has been rumored and talked about for several years now, with everyone from Frank Darabont to M. Night Shyamalan taking a crack at the Crystal Skull script. In the end screenwriter David Koepp who worked previously on Spielberg's remake of War of the Worlds, won the task of writing the script based on Lucas' original story and what ends up on the screen is a literal mish-mash of all three previous films.
Harrison Ford reprised his role as Indiana Jones who now in his sixties moves a little slower than in previous adventures. Ford has great fun exploring the older Dr. Jones and the effect age has on his ability to go up against forces of evil, this time represented by the Russian Communist party of the 1950s. During the film's opening, the sound of Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog" can be heard blasting over a car's radio, thus setting the film apart from it's earlier 1930s and 40s-themed films respectfully. When costar Shia LaBeouf shows up as a young 1950s greaser, his entrance is a complete homage to Marlon Brando's famed entrance in 1953's The Wild One. LaBeouf wears the exact same style hat, shirt and leather jacket as did Brando in the now iconic image from that decade. Spielberg has a lot of fun with the cold war of the fifties, following the opening chase at the Area 51 air force base, a humorous although unbelievable escape from an atomic bomb test in the Nevada desert soon follows. Shades of the silliness abound in the Temple of Doom film, make appearances throughout Crystal Skull, but never enough to completely destroy the adventure as some feel it did in that second sequel. Spielberg throws in some nice homage’s to the earlier films by paying tribute to both Connery's elder Jones character as well as the late Denholm Elliott's befuddled Marcus Brody. Even Karen Allen returns as Marion Ravenwood, Indy's love interest from the first Raiders film, back this time to explain the existence of the Shia LeBeouf character! Allen has a few light scenes with Ford, but fails to capture the same feistiness she brought to the role back in 1981. It was nice to hear John Williams' Marion's Theme played once again although briefly in the film's score. At the heart of the film's story is the adventure brought about by the search for the Crystal Skull and it's relationship to an ancient culture that may have it's roots in other-worldly influences. And unlike the strong mythologies rooted in the first and third films, this muddled mess of an ancient Amazon culture somehow relating to inter-dimensional beings just doesn't payoff. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, the strong influence of the Nazi's grasp for power by way of the Lost Ark of the Covenant or again in Last Crusade's search for the Holy Grail offered far-greater tension and believability to an already unbelievable genre.
Harrison Ford reprised his role as Indiana Jones who now in his sixties moves a little slower than in previous adventures. Ford has great fun exploring the older Dr. Jones and the effect age has on his ability to go up against forces of evil, this time represented by the Russian Communist party of the 1950s. During the film's opening, the sound of Elvis Presley's "Hound Dog" can be heard blasting over a car's radio, thus setting the film apart from it's earlier 1930s and 40s-themed films respectfully. When costar Shia LaBeouf shows up as a young 1950s greaser, his entrance is a complete homage to Marlon Brando's famed entrance in 1953's The Wild One. LaBeouf wears the exact same style hat, shirt and leather jacket as did Brando in the now iconic image from that decade. Spielberg has a lot of fun with the cold war of the fifties, following the opening chase at the Area 51 air force base, a humorous although unbelievable escape from an atomic bomb test in the Nevada desert soon follows. Shades of the silliness abound in the Temple of Doom film, make appearances throughout Crystal Skull, but never enough to completely destroy the adventure as some feel it did in that second sequel. Spielberg throws in some nice homage’s to the earlier films by paying tribute to both Connery's elder Jones character as well as the late Denholm Elliott's befuddled Marcus Brody. Even Karen Allen returns as Marion Ravenwood, Indy's love interest from the first Raiders film, back this time to explain the existence of the Shia LeBeouf character! Allen has a few light scenes with Ford, but fails to capture the same feistiness she brought to the role back in 1981. It was nice to hear John Williams' Marion's Theme played once again although briefly in the film's score. At the heart of the film's story is the adventure brought about by the search for the Crystal Skull and it's relationship to an ancient culture that may have it's roots in other-worldly influences. And unlike the strong mythologies rooted in the first and third films, this muddled mess of an ancient Amazon culture somehow relating to inter-dimensional beings just doesn't payoff. In Raiders of the Lost Ark, the strong influence of the Nazi's grasp for power by way of the Lost Ark of the Covenant or again in Last Crusade's search for the Holy Grail offered far-greater tension and believability to an already unbelievable genre.
1 comment:
I would agree with your sentiment......It was an enteraining film but your observations are ones I hold as well. That being said. I still am glad I saw it.
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