Executive Producer George Lucas and director Steven Spielberg last spun us a wild tale of their archaeologist hero in 1989, and nearly two decades later they have teamed up again to create INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL, a rather muddied melange of the best the previous three Indy films had to offer, crowded with new story elements and characters which may prove the weakest of the franchise.  The search for a golden script which would merit a return of the adventurous Dr. Jones spanned this 19-year gap, and alas the results illustrate that time was not on the side of Indy and his skull-seeking pursuits.

Harrison Ford reprises his role, older, grayer and slightly the wiser by 1957, also nearly two decades after his previous escapades defeating Nazi treasure hunters and saving the world.  Little has changed in THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL, with the villain now being played by Cate Blanchett and her host of Communist thugs in place of World War II-era goosesteppers, but the evil aim is the same: world domination through acquisition of an occult object's supernatural powers.  If this sounds all too familiar, you're right, and sadly it's all been done better at least twice before.

To settle the record: Ford isn't too old to play Indiana Jones, as many fans may have feared.  The actor and character have aged accordingly since their last reunion in the late '80s, which reportedly is why Ford finally approved the CRYSTAL SKULL storyline — he could act his age and re-examine Jones from the other end of the spectrum.  To Ford's credit, if not the script itself, this works for the film as Indy recalls enough of his more youthful style and sarcasm to bridge the generation gap up to today.

What fails to work, for me, is that the world also grew up and older around Jones to the point that this Cold War context fails to spark the heroic passion and patriotism Indy's ongoing battle against Nazi menace ignited in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and THE LAST CRUSADE.  Blanchett's Russian duelist and driven Irina Spalko offers none of the evil charm and love-to-hate attitude which actors Ronald Lacey (Toht in RAIDERS), Amrish Puri (Mola Ram in TEMPLE OF DOOM) and Julian Glover (Donovan in LAST CRUSADE) delivered in spades before.  Spalko certainly replicates the soulless fanaticism of her earlier counterparts, sacrificing any and all to learn the secrets of the Crystal Skull, but her role is otherwise a structural function of the David Koepp's busy but uninspired screenplay.  Aside from her mission to use Jones and his cohorts to gain her otherworldly treasure, there's little in Spalko for an audience to truly enjoy hating in the best sense of solid villainy.

Then again, setting aside Indy himself, Koepp's script delves very shallowly into all the characters, old and new, engaged in the prolonged chase of clues and cliffhangers which fill KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL.  Perhaps most the most egregious oversight in this regard is the return of Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood, Indy's long-ago love from RAIDERS.  While Allen fits back into the role smoothly and with enthusiastic aplomb, her character gets needlessly bogged down with globs of exposition — a sin spread over many other characters in the film, including Jones himself.  Allen does her best to restore a bit of the original glory to this fourth Indy outing, but the crowded story continually prevents her and her fellow actors from ever building up enough character momentum to truly propel the story.  Instead, Marion and the rest of Indy's band work hard to push the plot ever forward, as this story covers a lot of ground, geographically and thematically.

Up and coming actor Shia LaBeouf, fresh off starring roles in consecutive hits TRANSFORMERS and DISTURBIA, joins the adventure as Mutt Williams, a switchblade whiz with a Marlon Brando-wannabe look but a bookworm's brain.  A letter from his missing mother links Mutt with Jones as word of a lost professor in the jungles of South America sets Russian spies hot on the duo's trail, a fun but redux motorcycle chase through the campus of Marshall College ensuing on cue.  Once again, the script saddles Mutt with packets of prologue and past information he must spill to Indy, who responds with his own history recaps of the intervening two decades.  Both actors try to play it off as entertainingly as possible, and their pairing holds up enjoyably throughout, but in the end this script can never shake off the weight of the intervening years to exploit its intended story benefits.  If this is LaBeouf's most high-profile yet disappointing performance to date, one can't really fault the personable actor for the failure, as his character is repeatedly reactive to situations, too central to be a simple sidekick, yet too shallowly drawn to be a true co-star.

More disappointing still are the underused talents of and underwhelming characters foist upon the rest of the supporting cast. Ray Winstone gets little more to work with than a thick Brit accent as Indy's shady cohort Mac, who pales in comparison to past solid characters like Sallah or even Short Round. Jim Broadbent as Marshall dean Charles Stanton fares even worse, though no fault of his own. At least THE LAST CRUSADE replicated enough of Marcus Brody's function to honor Denholm Elliott's return, but Keopp fails to offer Broadbent any dramatic traction to elevate Stanton into the same mold.  Broadbent was an enthusiastically received addition to the cast when he was announced, but sadly for the actor he makes an couple of token scene appearances opposite Ford before the antics begin, and then disappears in the dusty wake of the main action. John Hurt suffers as the bedeviled and disheveled Harold Oxley, captive of the Russian bullies and key to the Crystal Skull's importance, but again his role offers caricature and conundrums where involving emotional character should exist. 

As for the McGuffin of CRYSTAL SKULL's title, it sets up a fusion of science fiction and Indy-loving adventure which never seem to agree with each other stylistically or dramatically.  Just as the script is crowded with too many key characters who must split up motivations and meaning in the plot, so too is the film overstuffed with big events which may strain credibility for some viewers but definitely stretch thin the enjoyability of the story.  I admire Lucas and Spielberg's decision to take Jones into post-middle age with dignity and realism, but the substitution of the 1950s sci-fi B-movie genre for the 1930s Saturday matinee serials doesn't gel as effectively.  Satisfaction in the story suffers accordingly. I have no beef with this fourth film being different — it had to be and should be — but in the end too much packed into this tale yields lesser results, not better.

On that very note, regrettably I must include composer John Williams' CRYSTAL SKULL score as another unsuccessful attempt to reach the bar he set perhaps impossibly high for himself with his iconic themes from RAIDERS, TEMPLE OF DOOM and LAST CRUSADE.  Irina's Theme certainly conjures up the Soviet tone of the plot, but the weakness of her character fails to import feeling or resonance in the composition.  Little else of Williams' score stands out as you watch the film, unlike the bombastic bliss of his Desert Chase track from RAIDERS, or the haunting romanticism of the Holy Grail melody in LAST CRUSADE.  Sadly, the most memorable themes from this new score are reprises of his Raiders March, Marion's and the Ark's themes which continue to excite the ears and imagination two decades after their debut.

In the recent reissues of the three prior INDIANA JONES films in a DVD box set, Spielberg confides in the bonus interviews that THE TEMPLE OF DOOM was his least favorite of the existing trilogy.  Yet even so his attention to emotion-evoking character and story work in that least mature of the series outshines his direction here. INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL does replicate moments and traits which worked well in the three previous films, but ultimately it suffers from excesses of plot points and overblown CG action set pieces which may duplicate the kinetic, cinematic energy of Indy's wildest exploits of the past, but fail to advance his character or mythology to greater heights.  Spielberg and Lucas insisted that this fourth Indy adventure was solely for the fans, and perhaps this is true in the best and weakest sense of the words. In any case INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL will rank as a disappointing fourth in the franchise's scale of satisfying adventures.

READ OUR INDIANA JONES AND THE RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK REVIEW HERE

READ OUR INDIANA JONES AND TEMPLE OF DOOM REVIEW HERE

READ OUR INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE REVIEW HERE