Indiana Jones and the Debacle of the Crystal Numbskulls

06.03.08

I knew it was going to be bad. I just didn’t expect it to be UNFORGIVABLY TERRIBLE.

It breaks my heart, really. The Indiana Jones trilogy is like scripture to me. They are among my favorite movies; I consider them to be works of sheer brilliance. I even went to college intending to study Archaeology. The fact that this impeccable mythos has now been disgraced with this latest, putrid addition to the Indiana Jones franchise literally pains me.

Why, Spielberg, why?

I mean, I knew that George Lucas had lost his mind. I saw the Star Wars prequels. I knew that he had, apparently, abandoned all sense of taste, artistry, and drama. I knew that he had it in him to ruin a good thing.

But Steven, I thought you knew better. I figured that you wouldn’t let George ruin this one, that you’d be the voice of reason that would save Indiana Jones from the embarrassingly crappy fate that befell Yoda, Obi-Wan, and Darth Vader. I guess I was wrong.

It seems that George Lucas is hell-bent on destroying everything beautiful that he’s ever created. What’s next, a soulless, shamelessly merchandized sequel to American Graffiti? I wonder if he beats his children.

I expected that it would be Shia LeBeouf who would ruin this movie. Ever since I was subjected to Keanu Reeves’ crapfest Constantine, I’ve had nothing but distaste for Shia, whose vast repertoire encompasses both the whiny, obnoxious motormouth as well as the shit-talking, disagreeable douchebag. It would be safe to say that Shia LeBeouf is probably my least favorite actor of all time. When I first beheld the poorly-Photoshopped Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull poster that featured Harrison Ford and Shia LeBeouf standing next to each other, smiling like a pair of dipshits, I wept inside.

However, I was wrong. It wasn’t Shia LeBeouf who ruined this movie. He actually did a decent job, as far as acting in crappy movies goes.

I’m blaming George Lucas. The credits say “Story by George Lucas,” and I know that he’s metamorphosed into a talentless douche in his old age, so I’m blaming him. I’m also blaming Spielberg for not slapping some sense into him and agreeing to direct this amateurish, big-budget fiasco.

The movie starts out terribly, and leaves a bad taste in your mouth right off the bat. It plays like an outlandish rip off of the Hills Have Eyes. And if there’s one thing an Indiana Jones flick shouldn’t do, it’s retread ground previously covered by the Hills Have Eyes.

I eventually started digging the movie when it got political, taking jabs at the repression of the 50s and the idiocy of the McCarthyist establishment. I started digging it a lot more when the greasers and jocks began brawling at the diner. There’s something truly archetypical and unabashedly American about a gang war between leather jacket clad  rockers and letterman jacket clad conformists. It reminded me of high school. I loved it.

The film maintained this momentum from the brawl with a motorcycle chase and a trip to South America. However, it soon began to slow down, fizzling out in a puddle of unoriginal mediocrity and ultimately stewing in its own ridiculousness. The film shortly transformed into a tired, second-rate knock-off of King Kong, Pirates of the Caribbean, Apocalypto, and Independence Day, among others.

In no time at all I found myself watching, slack-jawed, as Shia LeBeouf swung across poorly rendered CGI vines with a pack of digital monkeys.

It was at this point that I averted my eyes in embarrassment at the travesty that Indiana Jones had become.

Soon afterwards, I heard Harrison Ford utter that oft-heard line that is used in apparently every movie that George Lucas touches, and particularly dominant in the Star Wars prequels: “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

It was at this point that I wanted to slit George Lucas’ fat throat. I never want to hear those words again. No, it is not an in-joke; it is a mind-numbing cliché that has been overused to the point of tedium by a man incapable of writing decent dialogue.

Later, I found myself observing what was possibly the most generic, contrived, and thoroughly unoriginal computer graphic alien ascend into space in a UFO.

It was at this point that I wanted to burn the script of this atrocious movie in front of Steven Spielberg’s face.

Indiana Jones movies are supposed to be about history and mythology, not about science fiction clichés. I really don’t know what the hell these guys were thinking. To boot, this film espouses the Eurocentric fallacy perpetuated by UFO geeks for decades: namely, that non-Western cultures (Egyptians, Aztecs, Incas, etc.) were too primitive to have built monuments such as the pyramids and the ziggurats, ergo these structures were actually built under the supervision of extra-terrestrial aliens. This hypothesis has always been a crock of bullshit, a symptom of the sad fact that imperialists over the centuries opted to burn libraries rather than learn from other cultures. There are a multitude of superior myths that could’ve been used to far better results in an Indy flick than this hackneyed and ultimately racist drivel.

And, in what was perhaps the ultimate sacrilege of the film, Indy gets married at the end. There are two men in the world of film who are never supposed to get married: namely James Bond and Indiana Jones. These characters thrive as archetypical rakes who have a different love interest in every subsequent movie. To tie one of them down is to castrate the character and destroy his mystique. Essentially, this is exactly what happened to Indiana Jones. To boot, his wedding was attended by a bunch of nobodies that the audience has no emotional attachment to. Where was Sallah? And I know Sean Connery’s still alive, by the way.

The plot of this movie reads like it was written by a fifth grader. Indeed, a fifth grader could’ve done a better job. I could’ve too, for that matter. Either Spielberg and Lucas are so over-confident that they think they can film fecal matter and it will sell millions, or they are surrounded by an army of yes-men who are too nerdy to advise their idols on matters of good taste and continuity.

Even as a digital artist myself, there’s no denying that computer graphics are no substitute for decent set design and solid cinematography. They’ve stolen the soul of Indiana Jones.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen. I haven’t felt this betrayed since Eminem released “Encore.” Skip this one; it will only break your heart. Go see Iron Man instead.

Overall grade: D