Indiana Jones Enjoyment
by Spencer Warren
Issue 111 - July 9, 2008

Exciting movies that allow one to turn off one’s brain for two hours, just for sheer fun, have an honorable place in movie history. They have to be well-done professionally, to be sure. Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones movies have earned their place in this pantheon, and I am pleased to report that the fourth installment (and the first since 1989) joins its predecessors in the annals of high-class enjoyment at the movies.

Our archeologist-adventurer Dr. Henry “Indiana” Jones (Harrison Ford), having, with some not inconsiderable effort, finished off the Nazis in the earlier films, is now embroiled with the Russian Communists in 1953, at the height of the Cold War. It seems our Russian friends, led by a woman scientist who is the true Commie from Hell, Col. Dr. Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett), are after the legendary Crystal Skull of the title; this relic of many, many centuries past, they have heard, holds the secret of total and complete power. Armed as ace commandoes, they seize our Nevada nuclear test site, where they believe they can find the way to the ultimate secret, provided they have the coerced assistance of Indie. From here, off we go on a two hour adventure filled with one hot pursuit after another, each more daring and improbable than the one before, punctuated by some (mild) fisticuffs and (uneven) wry humor. Not to mention a few surprises.

Yes, fans, the game’s afoot and so is the stuntwork: across the hallowed campus of Yale (even including its august library) – Yale would be justified in banning motorcycles after this experience -- to a very creepy old cemetery in an obscure village in Peru to the darkest forests of the Amazon, and more. Indie and his new companion, Mutt Williams (Shia LaBoeuf), a fifties teen motorcyclist with greased-back hair of the type made famous as a fifties icon by Marlon Brando in The Wild One (1954), are never more than a half-step ahead of the Reds, except when they are held prisoner.

There is much more to this thrilling adventure, such as an army of man-eating ants, not to mention the usual motor vechicle chases, precipices and dangling vines, concocted to perfection by Spielberg, based on the George Lucas-Philip Kaufman creation of the Indiana character. His sure hand never lets us tire of the action heaped upon action; he keeps us riveted to the edge of our seats once the action really gets moving – and he finds no need to indulge himself in gratuitous or explicit violence. John Williams, as always in this series, makes the music a key partner in the pace and rhythm of the picture. And where would we be without the ingeniously imaginative settings and special effects by the many craftsmen (and craftswomen) listed in the end credits? Not to mention, of course, the excellent cast: Ford is a true star with screen charisma and, at 65, has not lost a step, or his looks; he is very ably supported by Ms. Blanchett and all the cast. This is superb summer entertainment for teenagers and their elders.

Spielberg probably has directed more films than anyone in the past three-plus decades – this is about his thirtieth – and he shows no sign of slowing down at the age of 61. A huge power in Hollywood, through his production companies he also has produced more than one hundred films and television projects, including, alas, the atrocious Clint Eastwood falsifications of the Battle of Iwo Jima. (See reviews at here and here.) His career has alternated between crowd-pleasers like the Indiana Jones movies, Jaws (1975), 1941 (1979), Hook (1991), Jurassic Park (1993) and War of the Worlds (2005), and serious, ambitious films like The Color Purple (1985), Schindler’s List (1993), Amistad (1997), Saving Private Ryan (1998) and Munich (2005). Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and E.T.: The Extraterrestrial (1982) seem to fall in between as serious audience-pleasers. Among his current projects is a film version of Doris Kearns Goodwin’s historical opus about Lincoln’s presidency, Team of Rivals, with Liam Neeson playing the great man. (This project may be encountering difficulties and now is postponed from 2009 release – the Lincoln bicentenary—to 2010.) Scheduled ahead of this one and currently in production is The Trial of the Chicago 7, with a script by the liberal brain of TV’s West Wing, Aaron Sorkin.

Spielberg evidently has many films left in him, but at this point an assessment may be in order. His audience-pleasers tend to be superior to his more serious efforts. He is highly accomplished at his craft, but when it comes to weighty subjects, his professionalism is not matched by a personal vision or artistic weight and maturity; this shortcoming is in part reflected in his more recent interest in topical “current events” films like Munich and his upcoming treatment of the Abbe Hoffman “yippies” who disrupted the 1968 Democratic convention, the so-called “Chicago 7.” Many of his serious films have unforgettable scenes – the shot on the bedroom wall of the two sisters in silhouette playing patty-cake in The Color Purple, the brilliant, harrowing sequence of the Nazi pogrom in Schindler’s List, the Omaha beach landing in Saving Private Ryan, to name three examples – but they lack unified impact as whole works. Unlike most great directors, Spielberg does not stamp a particular vision across his work, either thematically or stylistically. Seen recently in a one-hour interview on Turner Classic Movies, he did not come over as a thoughtful man or a person of depth, although he has done good things, such as using his films to promote greater public knowledge of the Holocaust and the Second World War.

Spencer Warren is ConservativeBattleline On Line's media critic.