Written by:
Katie Peoples
Photographer:
Courtesy Paramount Pictures
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this Issue of Curve:
18#5
The best thing about Indiana Jones and the Kindom of the Crystal Skull is that it’s no Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace.
This may seem like an odd thing but let’s compare: Both film series are the product of George Lucas’ imagination; both have Harrison Ford playing plucky characters; both have a rabid fan base and both have a love affair with special effects.
The big difference? Steven Spielberg is a genius director. George Lucas is not.
That said Spielberg has taken the lessons of the disaster that was the Star Wars prequels to heart and kept the latest Indy flick as true to the style of the others as possible. What he’s come up with is an Indiana Jones film that accounts for the time gap (it’s set in 1957, Last Crusade takes place in 1938) by giving us an older, wiser Indiana caught up in the Red Scare.
The KGB step in as the enemy of the United States in search of mythical artifacts that will give them a supernatural edge—in this case an extraterrestrial crystal skull. Colonel-doctor Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett) is dominatrix-like as the psychic researcher who needs to “know everything.” (FYI: Look out for a queer gag with her in the beginning.) She wrangles Indiana into helping her find the crystal skull and returning it to Akator (aka El Dorado) by holding his former flame Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) hostage.
Along the way Indy picks up a sidekick, Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf, who’s not nearly as bad as all those fans were predicting), who in a lot of ways acts like the younger Indiana from previous films. The two spend a lot of time together, track their friend Harold Oxley (John Hurt) into the jungles of the Amazon, and their dialogue as they travel is reminiscent of Indiana’s banter with his father. And his reunion with the feisty Marion leads to some surprising revelations (who also gets some of her own action sequences).
It’s a by-the-numbers Indiana Jones film, but what makes it spectacular is how simplistic it all seems. Shot on film instead of digitally, using stunt work and camera angles in place of CGI, the film looks like it was made two years after the last one. In fact, the special effects orgy at the end seems out of place, not because it looks like War of the Worlds, but because it looks too modern.
If you’re a fan of the originals you won’t be disappointed with this latest installment, and for everyone else it’s a great popcorn flick.
Keep an eye out for a future issue that will feature a real life lesbian Indiana Jones, a drag king pharaoh and much more gay archaeology. |
