Indiana Jones gets roped into finding a missing colleague and the mother of a smart aleck James Dean wannabe (Shia LaBeouf), while racing against the Soviets to find a long-lost city and the great power within.
So Spielberg decided to move the timeline forward to the '50s, and with it, shift to a more sci-fi plot, and also shift the antagonists to the Soviets for the Cold War era setting. Although my dad and I agreed Cate Blanchett's weird "doctor of the paranormal" character would have fit as well as a Nazi scientist. Maybe she switched sides.
And really, most of the action would still fit with the pulp aesthetic of the earlier movies. The search through the graveyard for the conquistador's grave, complete with a couple of local weirdos trying to ambush them from the shadows with blowguns. The quicksand, or whatever it was Indy said it was. The ancient temple with traps - why would you set it up to open a path beneath the obelisk, but design the stairs to immediately retract into the walls so people get dumped onto enormous spikes - and gold. The chase sequence with people switching vehicles during the whole thing. And the alien science might as well be magic. Like Indy says, what God looks like depends on what God you worship.
If the movie wanted to do more with the Cold War paranoia, maybe play up the FBI suspecting Indy's loyalties beyond them pressuring the university to kick Indy out. I guess that was "Mac's" (Ray Winstone) role, as the guy Indy thought of as a long-time friend and ally, who turned out to be a backstabbing traitor, then pretended to be acting as a double-agent, but was really just a greedy pig all along.
Blanchett doesn't get a lot to do. As an antagonist, she's at least a little different from Belloq (Raiders) or Donovan (Last Crusade.) At the end of the day, those guys were more like Mac, just interested in themselves. Belloq wants the credit and aggrandizement of finding rare treasures. Donovan thinks to use the Nazis to gain immortality because he's afraid of death. Even Mola Ram was ultimately a phony, trying to hoard power for himself. Dr. Spalko does want knowledge for herself, but I think she's also a true believer in the Soviet ideals.
I'm not sure the movie does enough with that either. Feels like there ought to be a difference between dealing with a ruthless ideologue versus self-interested egotists. But hell, I got to watch her kick the crap out of LaBeouf in a sword fight atop two jeeps. That was fun, better than him swinging through the trees like Greaser Tarzan, but he does alright with the role he's got. Cocky, impulsive, in over his head but game to try nonetheless.
Karen Allan still has an easy banter and chemistry with Harrison Ford, though it comes out more when they're arguing and sniping at each other. It's funny how the rest of the movie seems to just come to a halt, like all the characters decide this is too good to miss, so they just stop to watch.
4 comments:
I remember watching this at the time in the cinema . . . I remember enjoying Cate Blanchett's performance . . . I remember wanting to slap Shia LaBeouf's character . . . I remember being disappointed with the ending . . . and that's about it.
I was expecting the "Indy survives a nuke by hiding in a fridge" scene to stick with me more, but it just kind of bounced off my mind. Too silly to stick, maybe.
So it'll probably be Blanchett's character and my deciding Harrison Ford runs weird (He runs on his heels like, but like he's trying not to run at all, so awkward) that sticks with me.
I saw this at the cinema, and came away so disappointed I didn't watch it again for over a decade. I decided to give it another chance recently and while I wasn't as disappointed the second time, it's still... well, it's not really bad in any significant way, but it is sort of aggressively not good.
"Aggressively not god," is an excellent description.
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