Back Home Again with Indiana

I may have just got done saying I don't do midnight premieres, but that doesn't mean I don't do opening nights. I just got back from the new Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. (Be sure you get a deep breath before you start saying that title.)

DO NOT go to this movie in anticipation of a movie "you've waited 19 years to see." I think you couldn't possibly avoid being disappointed. But go in expectation of a fun adventure, and I think you couldn't help but have a good time. It's no Raiders of the Lost Ark, nor a Last Crusade, but it's a very enjoyable movie, and a long mile better than Temple of Doom.

The movie bounces with energy from one edge-of-your-seat action sequence to the next, losing almost no momentum over its two hours. It has just the right touch of nostalgia, calling up connections to the earlier films in just the right amounts. It plays around with the fact that this is an older main character than before, just enough to be humorous, not too much to belabor the point.

Harrison Ford hasn't been this good in a movie since probably The Fugitive. You sense that Cate Blanchett is having the time of her life playing a villain, and that enthusiasm makes her performance very fun to watch. Shia LaBeouf, who has proven to be a good enough actor before, finally ends up in a movie that doesn't suck. And Karen Allen breathes life into the movie; I almost felt that it only started to get really good when she first appeared on screen.

Crystal Skull is not without a few flaws, though. First, I got the distinct impression that the opening act didn't receive the same writing polish as the rest of the film. Not in the big moments most people would say "matter," because the opening sequence itself is certainly a whirlwind. But the early exposition drags a bit. And on more than a few occasions, characters are shown knowing some bit of information in one scene only to somehow forget it and have to be retold it a few scenes later. You'd think on a movie of this magnitude, they'd buff out these rough spots before rolling the cameras. But hey, at least someone other than George Lucas wrote the screenplay itself, so the dialogue actually doesn't come a pair of Dutch shoes.

The impersonal hand of special effects made itself a bit more known in this movie than in the previous films. This may seem odd to say, given that technology has had two decades to progress. But there were many shots in this film that just looked and felt fake -- more in this movie alone than the other three Indys combined, if you ask me.

I also felt the final act didn't quite work, like it was some raving George Lucas brain child he forced on everyone else involved. I'll try to be as spoiler-free and circumspect here as I can: thematically, it's absolutely in line with the message of the earlier movies. Some things, man just isn't meant to know. And yet, even though I didn't have a hard time accepting melting Nazis or booby-trapped cups aging you centuries in mere seconds, I couldn't get on board with the wacky finale of this tale. It was just way out in left field.

Still, that at least got saved by what was actually the final scene. The movie ends on a great note, and the last "gag," if you will, is absolutely perfect. And as the credits start to roll and that famous fanfare plays one more time, I couldn't help but smile and think "I had a fun time." I rate it a B+, which puts it on top of the heap as my favorite new movie of the year to date.