Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

The familiar feeling of impending adventure. The now rare Lucasfilm logo flashing on the screen with its glimmering green aura. The Paramount Pictures mountain morphed into a lowly prairie dog mound in the Nevada desert in the 1950's. Such is the irony of anticipation and expectation that rides the coattails of the unprecedented success that two of the action film pioneers; George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, have created over the past three decades. They have reached the top of the mountain, and everything they do from here forward is a blank canvass of self-effacing work that in no way can be compared to their classics. Take the new trilogy of Star Wars for example. Disappointing to the millions of fans, it still grossed in the billions, and was Lucas' personal project for decades. I feel the same way about the resurrection of Indiana Jones.

Indiana Jones is as iconic a franchise as James Bond, with a hero as timeless as Harrison Ford himself. Millions of today's generation will be exposed to the childhood hero of every man in his late 20's to mid 40's. Raiders of the Lost Ark was one of the great action adventures that spawned hundreds of copycat protagonists throughout the 1980's, but none had quite the mystique or charisma that Indy had.

Jones is quintessential Ford, played this time with a bit of "I'm getting too old for this s*%t" sarcasm, and there is a refreshing blend of aging heroes, and franchise spin-off youth. The story begins in Nevada in the early 1950's and Jones is dragged into the hunt for an elusive artifact called the Crystal Skull by a band of Soviet military baddies led by Cate Blanchett. Her face looked every bit the part of the Russian masochist, but her accent was pretty awful. Not to pass judgment, she made the journey fun until the bitter end, but Russian? A little predictable.

Indy meets up with LaBeouf and they head to Peru to find the artifact. There are lots of dangerous near misses, many ludicrous escapes from peril and some pretty good action scenes. There are also some plot twists that have probably already been spoiled all over the Internet, and the obligatory creepy crawlers. For sentimental reasons, it just isn't quite the same as the first three. I fully appreciate the cinematic vision of Lucus and Spielberg, and Ford does a great job reprising his role at the ripe age of 65 (gray hair notwithstanding, he could easily pass for 50).

It must have been a wonderful treat to work on this film, but the filmmakers show their age a bit with some of the editing, special effects, and most importantly, the speed of our aging hero's actions. Everything seems to have been slowed down a pace or two, and the running and jumping that used to be so suspenseful is now elaborate schemes that lack the death-defying element. Spielberg seemed to be going through the motions a little bit. Of course, I could just be 20 years older with a less child-like imagination.

Channeling the young, adventurous archaeologist in all of us, this film satisfies on the level of the character and the world that Indiana lives in. Raiders of the Lost Ark is the gold standard, and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is in contention for the silver with the Last Crusade. Temple of Doom falls to fourth, no contest.

Ever entertaining, but impossible to reach the level of expectation from those of us who were raised on Indy. 8/10.