'Indiana Jones' is still a treasure

By Michael Sragow Sun Movie Critic

May 22, 2008

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(B+) Look into the eyes of the Crystal Skull and you learn the secrets of the universe. Look into the eyes of Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones and you learn the secret of star power.

When Soviet super-agent Irina Splanko ( Cate Blanchett) forces the dashing archaeologist to lock orbs with her unholy treasure, the irresistible force of the Skull meets the impenetrable object of Indy's brain. Ford brings off this close encounter with the unflappable humor and strength he has brought to each episode of this cheerfully outlandish series.

He needs every ounce of it for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which delivers a string of hilarious shocks as it leaps from the Nazi-dominated 1938 of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade to the Cold War of 1957. Set in Nevada, the opening sequence -- an instant classic -- carries American Graffiti teen culture into a new Indy universe as rock 'n' roll and hot rods crash into atomic fear and space-age paranoia.

Blanchett's Splanko burns a hole through the screen at first glare. It's hard to overstate the joys of Blanchett adopting a thick Russian accent and performing with the hyped-up intensity of a nightclub hypnotist. She's the true reincarnation of Bela Lugosi's Transylvanian Dracula.

Since producer George Lucas, director Steven Spielberg and screenwriter David Koepp organize sequences like interlocking toys, it would be cruel to give any tinker's trick away. At the center lies the mystery of the Crystal Skull of Akator, based on a real-life relic of disrepute found in the ruins of a Mayan temple.

True believers ascribe mystic powers to this Crystal Skull (and to others, including one named for Spielberg's beloved E.T.) partly because it was sculpted against its natural grain from a single piece of quartz crystal. In the Indiana Jones saga, the skull is a dream object for Splanko, an expert in occult and paranormal powers. It will be a nightmare for Americans if it falls into Splanko's hands.

Luckily, she and it face their match in Jones. Now more than ever, he's engaging, gnarly and opaque -- the most stubborn, least sentimental of escapist action heroes. The way Ford plays him, he's a man's man who appears to proclaim, "What you see is what you get," then carefully limits what you see. Still crazy after all these years, he's one of a kind because of his unapologetic imperfections.

For the price of admission, you also get Karen Allen's radiant return as Indy's game, resilient true love, Marion Ravenwood, and Shia LaBeouf doing a spirited 1950s bad boy with a pocket knife and a pocket comb. An overall air of jollity catapults you past the picture's gaudy excesses.

LaBeouf suffuses the young and restless Mutt with a ripe avidity that recalls 1950s idols like Tony Curtis as much as it does James Dean. Mutt teams with Indy to find the skull, the lost city of Akator or El Dorado (the legendary city of gold) and, more important, Mutt's mother, who ventured into the Peruvian wilderness to save a family friend.

LaBeouf and Ford have ideal chemistry: Ford snarls with the experience of age, LaBeouf glitters with the fool's immortality of youth. LaBeouf's bouts of switchblade bravado make his real bravery all the more stirring.

In some spooky-ticklish imagery, the skull exerts a magnetic pull -- and, at the horror high point, sets off pulsations that deflect organisms as turbulent as a colony of red ants. The snap of Koepp's script comes from how it organizes the characters so they, too, swerve around Indy like polarized forces.

The screenplay fails to give Ray Winstone, as Indy's slimy-Limey sidekick, and Jim Broadbent, as his twinkling college dean, enough to do. But they click smartly into place to aid or undercut Indy at just the right turns. And against all odds, John Hurt's moonstruck aura imbues a professor who's spent too much time in the jungle with a haunting presence.

This movie never takes itself too seriously. When it bursts over the top, it does so in style. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull doesn't build to the climactic lift of 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark. (Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade didn't, either.)

Yet Lucas and Spielberg still scatter enough gold dust -- make that crystal shavings -- to dazzle your eyes when Ford isn't tickling or elbowing your ribs. He pulls you into the thick of the action with his inimitable slow-burning elation; they help him with their exuberant virtuosity.

Like a maestro at a crowd-pleasing gala, Spielberg brings off flourishes from swashbucklers, Tarzan movies and pulp adventures along with the usual quota of Saturday-matinee cliffhangers. He and Lucas wisely muss up most of their digital sleight of hand with the sweat of muscular human stunts. Even when the movie becomes an over-extended bout of "Can you top this?" it never loses a seductive, knockabout spirit.

Despite the merry duo of Ford and Connery, The Last Crusade offered a familiar pursuit of the Holy Grail. The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull makes a better move: It goes back to the future. Once again, the Indiana Jones series is the rare franchise that treasures knowledge and embraces the unknown.

michael.sragow@baltsun.com