Philadelphia Weekly

We last saw Dr. Henry Jones Jr. riding off into the sunset some 19 years ago. Since then, star Harrison Ford has been sleepwalking through ever-crustier variations on his angry-dad persona, director Steven Spielberg went off and made some damn fine movies for grownups, and producer George Lucas put us all through a lot of suffering and fanboy angst with his Star Wars prequels.

This sense of aging and diminishment provides fodder for gags straight away in the rather clumsily titled Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Whereas previous Indy adventures began with Paramount Pictures' mountain logo dissolving into a majestic vista, this time it's a pathetic little prairie dog hill. We're in 1957 now. Elvis Presley is drowning out John Williams on the soundtrack, the Russians have taken over for the Nazis and McCarthyism has gripped the nation.

Times may have changed, but Indy will always be Indy. Spielberg assures us of this by relishing every moment of Ford's entrance into this unfamiliar landscape--doling out loving individual close-ups of the hat, a dusty boot and finally that iconic silhouette. It's hard not to shiver a bit when the trumpet fanfare kicks in, and the best parts of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull work almost like a time machine, skillfully replicating a bygone era of blockbuster filmmaking, back when summer movies sought to simply entertain rather than batter you into submission.

Of course there's no topping Raiders of the Lost Ark, with it's alchemical mix of 1930s serial adventure peril, supernatural menace, breakneck action sequences and a knowing sense of humor. (I was 6 years old in the summer of 1981 and this was more than just the most perfect awesomest movie ever made--it was all I could think about for months.)

The years have been less kind to the sequels. I still have a soft spot for Temple of Doom's nasty, freakazoid intensity, but Last Crusade is just too creaky and buffoonish to withstand repeat viewings.

So what a relief that Crystal Skull turns out to be a serviceable little nostalgia piece. I'm not sure there's any compelling reason for it to exist, but nowadays the summer movie landscape has grown so cluttered with gargantuan, visually incoherent behemoths, Indy's relative modesty is disarming. It's a fun night out at the movies, no more than that--but certainly no less.

A bit grayer and grouchier than when we last saw him, Ford relaxes back into the role like it's his favorite easy chair. Meanwhile, Cate Blanchett has a grand old time chewing the scenery as Stalin's most bodacious babe. She and her commie goons have been poking around Area 51, very much interested in some artifacts Dr. Jones investigated in Roswell. Better dead than red, our Indiana offers a snarled: "I like Ike."

Before long the fists are flying, the bullwhip's cracking and the acceptable standards of preposterousness are established when our resourceful Indiana escapes a nuclear blast by hiding inside a lead-lined Frigidaire.

Tagging along for the ride this time is Shia LaBeouf's Mutt Williams, a greaser who dresses like Marlon Brando in The Wild One and spends an awful lot of time on his hair. It's easy to resent the kid as a strategic marketing sop to a demographic that hadn't yet been conceived when the first films were released, but he's a heck of a lot less annoying than Short Round. Besides, the kid's got a great mom.

Yes, that would be Marion Ravenwood. Her hard-drinking tomboy was always the only girl for Indy, and Ford's performance perks up considerably once these two resume their screwball bickering, as if that whole Ark business happened only yesterday. Next thing you know we're on a breathless roller-coaster filled with bazookas, waterfalls, flesh- eating fire ants and a deceptively simple quicksand sequence so well-played it's the picture's highlight.

Funny how it works that way--the finest moments turn out to be the simplest ones. For all the lavish, occasionally gaudy CGI special effects on display, Steven Spielberg is such a master manipulator of kinetic energy that the human-scaled, practical stunts feel far more impressive than the spectacle shots. He stages these action sequences as elaborate bits of physical comedy, and although Crystal Skull keeps the low-stakes, jokey tone of Last Crusade, this is a much tighter, sprightlier piece of filmmaking.

It's an endearing throwback, one that aims low and hits the target: a fun night out at the movies.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
B
Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Shia LaBeouf
Opens Thurs., May 22