After initial bad buzz on the interwebs, the actual reviews are coming in for Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull, and they seem to be mostly positive.
Not that I've actually read them, of course--I want to save some surprises for when I see the movie. But one thing that seems interesting is that most of the positive reviews are coming from older, more established critics, people who write for actual print publications and whose knowledge of film history goes back further than the summer of 1981.
Me, I'm hoping for the best, but I've got a lot of qualms.
For one thing, this is the first Indiana Jones installment shot by someone other than the great cinematographer Douglas Slocombe. When he directed the earlier installments in the series, Steven Spielberg tended to shuffle cameramen with each new film. The Indy adventures were the only times Spielberg ever deployed the services of Slocombe, who made his name with the beloved Ealing comedies of the fifties and worked with everyone from Roman Polanski to Ken Russell. Slocombe brought a clean, classical style to the series, eschewing show-offy mannerisms or fashionable effects. All three of the previous Indiana Jones epics look like they could have been made in the waning days of the old studio system, one of the reasons they have such a timeless appeal.
Slocombe retired after 1989's Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, and Crystal Skull was shot by Janusz Kaminski, Spielberg's regular cinematographer since Schindler's List. They've done some excellent work together, and Kaminski is certainly versatile, but he tends to favor a hazy, washed-out palette that is the exact opposite of the simple, easily read images one associates with Slocombe's work on the series. Spielberg has claimed repeatedly he tried to go old school in the making of this latest installment, but I fear it may be a mere imitation.
(For what it's worth, Spielberg's other key collaborators from the series, editor Michael Kahn and, of course, composer John Williams, are present and accounted for. So there's that.)
Another potential hurdle here is the script. Over the years, Spielberg and producer George Lucas have famously dismissed numerous screenplays by a small army of writers until they finally found one they could agree upon. Unfortunately, this script is by David Koepp, who has written some of the worst movies in recent Hollywood history. For Spielberg alone, he contributed the stunningly awful plot and dialog for the second Jurassic Park epic and wrote the underwhelming War Of The Worlds. He wrote the dreadful scripts for The Paper and The Shadow, and created the aptly-named TV series Hack.
True, Koepp's credited with writing a couple of good movies, Carlito's Way and Panic Room, but those are examples of stylish directors overcoming weak material. On the other hand, so are the last two Indiana Jones movies--I love Temple Of Doom, but there's no doubt the script is its weakest aspect, and The Last Crusade is strictly a replay of earlier material. If Spielberg is firing on all cylinders here, he may be able to overcome even the dumbest storyline.
I'm also not too crazy about the presence of Shia LaBeouf in the cast, mostly because it feels like they're hedging their bets a little by throwing in a young guy to give the kids some kind of rooting interest. It's like if James Bond suddenly found himself saddled with a youthful sidekick. No thanks.
Despite all this, I will of course be the first in line when the damn thing opens, and honestly, I'm pretty seriously stoked. After all, this time out, Indy's taking on Commies! And since Cate Blanchett's character is apparently some sort of Rosa Klebb variation, we're entering James Bond territory here. Yikes! My enthusiasm is such that this could spill over into an entire Spielberg/Lucas week at this site. Maybe even with some Bond thrown in.
Let the geekery begin!
