Posted by
Tim on Tuesday, May 27, 2008 4:25:45 PM
Alright, so on Friday night I went to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. At Townhall.com Rich Galen has reviewed the movie here.
Overall, it wasn't bad, and I did enjoy it, and would not object to seeing it again, if only for the entertainment value. That being said, if you want a film that will be considered a classic, try looking elsewhere. The action scenes are pretty good, but the script was lacking.
WARNING: Spoilers follow!
The screenwriters seemed like they were trying to convey some significant messages, and, in doing so, failed. In one of the final scenes, Jones says, referring to the Nazca people, a pre-Columbian Peruvian culture, "Knowledge was their treasure." This is to contrast this culture to Mac, his former side-kick, who died while trying to collect gold and artifacts from a temple. Now, to say "Knowledge was their treasure" is fine--everyone recognizes the value of education. At the same time, one should not mindlessly mouth the sentiment and then expect it to come across as being particularly meaningful. Unfortunately, as the film was bereft of intellectual substance, it did come across as being thoughtless and trite, and was evidenced by Harrison Ford's particularly poor delivery.
The criticism of the "Knowledge was their treasure" line is closely related to the criticism of a major element of the plot--aliens who give the Nazca their knowledge. Yes, there are aliens in the film. And yes, they are the aliens from Roswell. Yet, these are not from another planet. These are inter-dimensional beings--beings from the space between space, as one character, a professor, put it. The inclusion of space-between-space-aliens seem to be an attempt to venture into the mysterious, into man's search for that which is greater than himself. Films ought to explore this side of man, but to use aliens to explore it is lame. The great cultures of the world have all developed subtle, deep, and creative literatures and mythologies to explore this theme. Why did the screenwriters not cull images or personalities from one of these? If they had chosen to go this way, such literatures would have provided the script a depth that comes from centuries of reflection upon man's spiritual element. Yet this would not do: the great religions of the world impose duties and morality. Understandably, people don't go to an action movie for a sermon--and I don't blame them for it. Ultimately though, the use of space aliens strikes me as an example of people trying to be spiritual, without any of the attendant duties of said spirituality. It is being mysterious for its own end, and in the end, faux-mysterious.
In addition to trying to be mysterious for its own sake, the film, every so often, is political for the sake of being political. For instance, at one point, after Jone's side-kick Mac is revealed to be a secret agent for the USSR; as a result the FBI makes it clear that it will monitor Jones. After this one scene, I thought there would a sub-plot within the film--which could have been very interesting, and could have made the movie suspenseful in ways that the action genre isn't. Actually, there was no further mention of the FBI's intent to track Jones. This is all the more surprising seeing as the main FBI agent was played by Neil Flynn, who is quite funny as the Janitor in Scrubs. Because this plot line seems to have been abandoned, I assume that the writers wanted to make a political point about supposed anti-Communist hysteria in the 1950s. This is unfortunate: rather than treating a significant historical issue with complexity, the writers authored a pathetic caricature. I'm certainly no expert on 1950s America, but I am often suspicious of the way the political climate has been portrayed in subsequent decades.
At any rate, I still enjoyed the film, despite its flaws. I don't go to an action movie and expect to be edified, and I was not disappointed.