Just like its hero, the Indiana Jones franchise has always been deep into archeology, digging up the old cinematic stuff of B-movie serials and then magnifying the dusty clichés under Steven Spielberg's flashy microscope. And thus was born the blockbuster which, ever since, has been excavating similar sites with identical intent, disinterring everything from pulp comics to ancient TV shows. The once-pressing question of how long a culture can go down that particular well - or bat cave, or torch-lit cavern, or fortress of solitude - has itself become a weary cliché. By now the answer is obvious: Interminably, albeit with diminishing aesthetic returns and at some risk to its creative vibrancy, but that's a small price to
pay to ensure the safety and well-being of a thriving box office. Familiarity, our culture has learned, breeds enough mass adoration to extinguish any lingering critical contempt. So, nearly two decades after the last appearance, Indiana Jones is back, along with its diminishing returns and its aging principals and their trademark tools.
Of course, enough time has passed that the shovels are getting put to different uses: Harrison Ford the elder is obliged to somehow dig up Harrison Ford the younger, while Spielberg feels compelled to stick a spade into his own vaunted canon. If nothing else, the actor and the director are definitely working together here. At this point in their careers, the two are doing precisely what the culture they belong to (and helped shape) has long done - damned if they aren't excavating themselves.
To that happy end, the setting gets bumped ahead somewhat, from the thirties of the original trilogy to the fifties, that Cold War era of the Red scare and witch-hunting and dull conformity flecked with a few Brandoesque rebels. There, we start off with quite the big bang. His fedora and bullwhip looking better preserved than their owner, a craggier Indy pops up on an atomic test site in the Nevada desert. Unaccountably, so does a band of godless Ruskies led, even more unaccountably, by Cate Blanchett, sporting a blunt cut and a blunter accent that do little to disguise an immediately evident problem: On the villain's gauge, she's already measuring a quart low.
Perhaps sensing as much, Spielberg is quick to go nuclear. He detonates nothing less than an A-bomb, which Indy survives by the crafty expedient of clearing out the veggies, chucking the meat crisper and packing himself into an emptied refrigerator. Who knew? All those billions and all that mutual-deterrence angst invested in the arms race, and the whole problem could have been solved by a simple salute from Major Appliance.
That opening blast is certainly unconventional, but the ensuing mushroom cloud is pretty much de rigueur. Spreading like fallout, it's the usual Byzantine plot, snaking down to Peru in this outing. En route, Indy hooks up with Mutt (Shia LaBeouf), a callow sidekick who, with his neat pompadour and omnipresent comb, isn't hard to locate on pop's archeological map - he's just the Fonz on leave from the malt shop. Inevitably, Indy and Fonzie are soon up to their leather jackets in steamy jungle and dank catacombs and sacred graveyards and what look to be the ghostly remnants of the entire cast of Apocalypto. And don't forget that Crystal Skull. While fans of the franchise will not be surprised to learn that said Skull possesses world-ruling powers, they may be a tad disappointed by its appearance - to my admittedly non-academic eye, the thing packs all the allure of a Wal-Mart knick-knack dug out from the depths of the discount barrel.
As they seek the Crystal Torso that accessorizes (and apparently empowers) the Crystal Knick-knack, our two heroes pause regularly for the banter that refreshes. The Fonz enjoys wise-cracking about a certain adventurer's advanced years, a concession to reality that Indy graciously accepts - just before leaping into a waterfall that would dwarf Niagara, splashing down with fedora impeccably intact, and swimming off to re-rescue the free world. Numbered among the accompanying complications are those indefatigably godless Russians, a double-dealing miscreant (Ray Winstone), a brain-addled professor (John Hurt), and the return of maid Marion (Karen Allen). The latter provides Indy and us with a rather geriatric love-interest; all the rest are fuel for the customary chase scenes on (or above or beneath or beside) the customary fleet of speeding conveyances.
Conducting another symphony in action, Spielberg seems a bit bored - always competent but never inspired - and who can really blame him? He tries to fire his interest by swiping a few tropes from the fifties pop bin, not-so-sly allusions to teen-trash movies and those McCarthy-era horror flicks. After that, there's really nowhere to go but inwards, which is when Spielberg starts looting Spielberg. As the climax nears, the plot takes an even wonkier turn into supernatural territory and, presto, out come E.T. aliens and a Close Encounters spaceship. No sign of the shark, but I may have missed it in the crowd.
Yes, the circle has closed and, within its airless confines, heroes are withering, energy is flagging, and the raiders are raiding their own precious arks.
