Promising start but goes off the rails It starts brilliantly and for the first third of the film I was blissfully enjoying something I never expected to see - a new Indiana Jones film in league with it's predecessors. Then something bad happens - the script spirals out of control - the film loses it's soul but keeps on going and going until it reaches a misjudged climax. There's enough good stuff to make it worth watching, and it's GREAT to see Indy again - Harrison totally pulls it off - but with 18 years to play with they could have cooked up a much tighter script.
The film feels 3-dimensional to begin with and promises so much, but the rest seems like a montage of ideas with no through-line, it loses all grounding and becomes a cartoon. Characters start to behave inconsistently, subplots inexplicably vanish, action scenes escalate beyond physical reality. I wouldn't be surprised if Lucas has to answer for some of the more outrageous elements, including the crazy UFO stuff. I'd be intrigued to read the Darabont script that he vetoed...
The crystal skull is flaccid. The immortality-granting Holy Grail inspired us with awe in Last Crusade, here we learn very little about the 'power' granted by the skull and the potentially fascinating curse/blessings of ultimate knowledge go unexplored. As a result, this McGuffin lacks gravity and is hard to care about.
In fact, lack of weight characterises the latter portion of the film. There are few scary or dangerous moments which are needed to create the necessary sense of peril. Spielberg knows how to terrify an audience - dinosaurs, tripods, opening the Ark, choosing the WRONG grail - all made us sit up and prey for our heroes to survive - but the crystal skull and Russian villains are all too soft. In addition, the more ambitious action scenes are neutered by obvious CGI, which instantly plucks us out of the movie - I squirmed when Indy was about to get ground between a tank and a mountain in Last Crusade because he was stuck between real metal and real rock, replace those with CGI textures and all threat is lost.
The clear, wide cinematography of the earlier films is replaced with blooming white spaces and an overuse of close shots, which combine with choppy editing to create an unreal and messy feel to certain action scenes. It's not all bad - there are some typically great Spielberg flourishes and long takes filled with inspired camera moves, especially early on, but as the script loses clarity so do the pictures. There is a sense that Spielberg wants to just get things over with, hence the reportedly quick shoot.
As mentioned, Ford is on superb form as Indy, and the buzz of seeing him back in the hat carried me through some of the film's weaknesses. La Boef is also strong and his banter with Indy is a highlight of the film. Ray Winstone starts strong but plays the same notes until it becomes apparent that his character is underwritten. It's a pleasure to see Karen Allen again and most of her rekindled sparkery with Indy is fun, but occasionally feels forced and there's little for her to do after saying 'hi'. John Hurt and Jim Broadbent do what they can with, again, underwritten 2D characters. Blanchet's villain is striking but lacks humanity and clear motivation, and her psychic powers are flushed down the toilet of potentially interesting subplots shortly after they're mentioned, and she never gets to face-off against Indy in a meaningful final showdown of clashing ideologies which could potentially further the film's theme, because the film struggles to find a theme, because the script is a hodge-podge of ideas from multiple screenwriters. It all comes back to that damned script, and I really want to see what Darabont had to offer, which Spielberg apparently loved.
When Spielberg publicly said to fans that he's 'making this film for YOU' it sounded like a good thing. I now realise he really meant - 'the reason I didn't pull the plug on this was for YOU'. After 18 years of tussle with George he seems to have finally given in and made it, deciding that the benefits outweighed the costs. He's right, and the film's merits outweigh its shortcomings. It's flawed - it warps from a charming little film into something bloated and insane, like Lucas, but it's certainly an Indiana Jones film.