Indiana Jones: The KIngdom of the Crystal Skull.
May 26th 2008 22:46
Category: Movies
“So you’re a teacher?”
“Part time…”
Mutt to Indiana Jones, Orealla’s Cradle.
“So what are you a triple agent…”
Indy to Mac, Ruins of Akator.
Director: Steven Spielberg.
Producer: Frank Marshall.
Story by: George Lucas & Jeff Nathanson.
Screenplay by: David Koepp.
Starring: Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones), Cate Blanchett (Irina Spalko), Karen Allen (Marion Ravenwood), Ray Winstone (Mac), Jim Broadbent (Dean Charles Stanforth), John Hurt (Professor Oxley) & Shia La Beouf (Mutt).
Produced by: Lucasfilm, Steven Spielberg & Paramount Pictures.
Released by: Paramount Pictures.
Running time: 130 minutes Rating: M.
After an extended absence of some considerable time (I thought it was 20 years others claim its 18) the man in the hat is back again in another epic adventure courtesy of Messrs Spielberg and Lucas. Way back when in the halcyon days of my youth I can still remember watching the Last Crusade at the local cinema and enjoying the experience immensely, it helped that I was with my friends and we were all big Indy fans. Sean Connery and Harrison Ford made an incomparable duo that worked extremely well on the silver screen in the tail of the Holy Grail, Nazi’s, extremely old guardian knights, immortality and double dealing. Now events have moved twenty years into the future, its nineteen fifty seven, the height of the Cold War when McCarthyism was running rampant throughout the continental United States. According to Senator McCarthy there were Reds under people’s beds and it was better off to be dead than red, he would have been at home in the height of the witch hunts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Politics aside the drama opens in some remote location in Nevada, Area 51 to be precise. A convoy of trucks and several staff cars head through the desert roads to a remote military facility in the desert countryside. En route a group of teenagers in a hot road try and race the lead staff car. The young drive is only too happy to comply until the unit reaches their turn off and leaves the teenagers and their hot road (complete with flames down the side de rigueur for any such vehicle) heading towards the nearest community. Here the convoy is stoped at a miliary police checkpoint and they are told by the MPs that the base is under strict lockdown, even the convoy commander has to get verification from the Pentagon due to new regulations. Naturally in 1950s USA you’d expect that the convoy’s CO would give these glorified flatfeet a real chewing out…and in a way he does. A shouted command and the several MPs are swiftly shot dead. What on earth is going on here you think? Ah well remember that remark about Reds under the Bed?
It seems that there is definitely more to this convoy of US Army soldiers than meets the eye, the first thing being that they are not American, not even remotely and the second being that they are all part of the KGB. For some reason they have decided to infiltrate the heartland of America for reasons unknown. As the trucks and staff cars pull up in the compound’s parking lot the possible reason for their interest in this location swiftly reveals itself. Two prisoners are bundled from the boot of one of the staff cars, the first is a stocky Englishman who we soon learn goes by the moniker of Mac, the other is initially unseen but as a hat rolls its way across the concrete and this figure swiftly bends to pick it up it soon becomes apparent who this is.
Dr Indiana Jones has had a rough journey, and who wouldn’t after being captured on a dig in Mexico and being driven all the way to the Nevada desert in the boot of a staff car. It’s a safe bet that the KGB is up to something and it involves this remote compound, Area 51 and something contained within its confines. It would be an easy to conclusion to make that what the KGB are looking for is no less than the Ark of the Covenant, and for a brief moment we actually catch a glimpse of that famous artefact from Judaic tradition, but this is not what the KGB are after not by a long shot. No they are after something more recent, something that in this particular stage of world history has a lot more resonance for the period than some mythical and mystical biblical relic.
Apart from McCarthyism and the subsequent witch hunts that the good senator spawned the fifties was also the time of UFOs, of flying saucers and other similar phenomena. After all ten years previously there was the alleged incident of a crashed saucer in the small town of Roswell, New Mexico. Apparently the bodies of several dead aliens were recovered from the wreckage of the crashed ship and President Truman was said to have actually conversed with a still living survivor. Even more incredible than the president speaking with aliens we actually learn that our intrepid hero had some involvement with the Roswell incident. It is precisely due to this event that has prompted the KGB to take steps to kidnap the good Dr Jones. Irina Spalko, capably played by Cate Blanchett, who is the KGB operative in charge wants Dr Jones to lead her to the aliens examined by the Americans one dark mysterious night ten years ago. According to her sources it is held within the Nevada facility they have just arrived at.
Thus it seems that in this latest addition to the Indianan Jones saga Messrs Spielberg and Lucas have opted to combine the elements of Cold War spy drama, Erich Von Daniken, Meso and Latin American history along with the history and fables of the Conquistadors into an action packed narrative. After the incident in Area 51 our trusty protagonist manages to escape betrayal at the hands of his old wartime buddy, Mac, death at the hands of KGB operatives and incineration by a nuclear weapon. It’s all edge of the seat stuff, but the story only gets even more action packed as it goes along, this is only the start of the roller coaster ride, and admittedly from here there is a slight period of calm, kind of like that before the storm. Indy returns to his work as a part time teacher at college where he is involved in a class, his old friend Dean Stanforth calls him from class to tell him that the FBI have searched his office and that the board of the college are considering sacking him, apparently the powers that be suspect him of having secret ‘commie’ sympathies. Opting for a leave of absence Indy is about to take a train to New York only to be contacted by a strange young man on a Harley Davidson and wearing an outfit that looks as if it came straight from the wardrobe of Marlon Brando in his very younger days.
This is the pivotal point in the story, after a close encounter at Area 51, this seemingly chance meeting with this rather edgy young man, known as Mutt, begins another epic quest for Indy. An old friend of Indy’s, Professor Oxley (aka Ox) has gotten into a spot of bother along with Mutt’s mother. Apparently Ox was looking for the fabled Crystal Skull and had managed to stumble onto it in his various wanderings. According to the tales the crystal skull was taken from the city of Akator located deep in the heart of the Amazon jungle, it was this place that was said to be the influence behind the legend of El Dorado. Mutt gives Indy a letter from Ox, written in an obscure South American dialect and peppered with various diagrams and sigils. It seems that certain forces are interested in this letter, namely the KGB who has managed to track down both Dr Jones and Mutt.
The chase is on as Indy and Mutt seek to put some breathing space between them and their KGB pursuers in order to interpret Ox’s strange scrawl and then find the missing professor, Mutt’s mother and the crystal skull. It will be a journey filled with some startling revelations, not only about the skull but about some of Indiana’s companions. All in all when I went to see this film at a special screening at my local cinema on Sunday 25 May I do admit to having some slight misgivings, all these though were swiftly dispelled as the movie began and Harrison Ford swiftly established that he was still more than capable of filling the boots and hat of the daredevil archaeologist, almost makes me want to take up the study of archaeology myself…
“Part time…”
Mutt to Indiana Jones, Orealla’s Cradle.
“So what are you a triple agent…”
Indy to Mac, Ruins of Akator.
Director: Steven Spielberg.
Producer: Frank Marshall.
Story by: George Lucas & Jeff Nathanson.
Screenplay by: David Koepp.
Starring: Harrison Ford (Indiana Jones), Cate Blanchett (Irina Spalko), Karen Allen (Marion Ravenwood), Ray Winstone (Mac), Jim Broadbent (Dean Charles Stanforth), John Hurt (Professor Oxley) & Shia La Beouf (Mutt).
Produced by: Lucasfilm, Steven Spielberg & Paramount Pictures.
Running time: 130 minutes Rating: M.
After an extended absence of some considerable time (I thought it was 20 years others claim its 18) the man in the hat is back again in another epic adventure courtesy of Messrs Spielberg and Lucas. Way back when in the halcyon days of my youth I can still remember watching the Last Crusade at the local cinema and enjoying the experience immensely, it helped that I was with my friends and we were all big Indy fans. Sean Connery and Harrison Ford made an incomparable duo that worked extremely well on the silver screen in the tail of the Holy Grail, Nazi’s, extremely old guardian knights, immortality and double dealing. Now events have moved twenty years into the future, its nineteen fifty seven, the height of the Cold War when McCarthyism was running rampant throughout the continental United States. According to Senator McCarthy there were Reds under people’s beds and it was better off to be dead than red, he would have been at home in the height of the witch hunts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Politics aside the drama opens in some remote location in Nevada, Area 51 to be precise. A convoy of trucks and several staff cars head through the desert roads to a remote military facility in the desert countryside. En route a group of teenagers in a hot road try and race the lead staff car. The young drive is only too happy to comply until the unit reaches their turn off and leaves the teenagers and their hot road (complete with flames down the side de rigueur for any such vehicle) heading towards the nearest community. Here the convoy is stoped at a miliary police checkpoint and they are told by the MPs that the base is under strict lockdown, even the convoy commander has to get verification from the Pentagon due to new regulations. Naturally in 1950s USA you’d expect that the convoy’s CO would give these glorified flatfeet a real chewing out…and in a way he does. A shouted command and the several MPs are swiftly shot dead. What on earth is going on here you think? Ah well remember that remark about Reds under the Bed?
Dr Indiana Jones has had a rough journey, and who wouldn’t after being captured on a dig in Mexico and being driven all the way to the Nevada desert in the boot of a staff car. It’s a safe bet that the KGB is up to something and it involves this remote compound, Area 51 and something contained within its confines. It would be an easy to conclusion to make that what the KGB are looking for is no less than the Ark of the Covenant, and for a brief moment we actually catch a glimpse of that famous artefact from Judaic tradition, but this is not what the KGB are after not by a long shot. No they are after something more recent, something that in this particular stage of world history has a lot more resonance for the period than some mythical and mystical biblical relic.
Apart from McCarthyism and the subsequent witch hunts that the good senator spawned the fifties was also the time of UFOs, of flying saucers and other similar phenomena. After all ten years previously there was the alleged incident of a crashed saucer in the small town of Roswell, New Mexico. Apparently the bodies of several dead aliens were recovered from the wreckage of the crashed ship and President Truman was said to have actually conversed with a still living survivor. Even more incredible than the president speaking with aliens we actually learn that our intrepid hero had some involvement with the Roswell incident. It is precisely due to this event that has prompted the KGB to take steps to kidnap the good Dr Jones. Irina Spalko, capably played by Cate Blanchett, who is the KGB operative in charge wants Dr Jones to lead her to the aliens examined by the Americans one dark mysterious night ten years ago. According to her sources it is held within the Nevada facility they have just arrived at.
Thus it seems that in this latest addition to the Indianan Jones saga Messrs Spielberg and Lucas have opted to combine the elements of Cold War spy drama, Erich Von Daniken, Meso and Latin American history along with the history and fables of the Conquistadors into an action packed narrative. After the incident in Area 51 our trusty protagonist manages to escape betrayal at the hands of his old wartime buddy, Mac, death at the hands of KGB operatives and incineration by a nuclear weapon. It’s all edge of the seat stuff, but the story only gets even more action packed as it goes along, this is only the start of the roller coaster ride, and admittedly from here there is a slight period of calm, kind of like that before the storm. Indy returns to his work as a part time teacher at college where he is involved in a class, his old friend Dean Stanforth calls him from class to tell him that the FBI have searched his office and that the board of the college are considering sacking him, apparently the powers that be suspect him of having secret ‘commie’ sympathies. Opting for a leave of absence Indy is about to take a train to New York only to be contacted by a strange young man on a Harley Davidson and wearing an outfit that looks as if it came straight from the wardrobe of Marlon Brando in his very younger days.
This is the pivotal point in the story, after a close encounter at Area 51, this seemingly chance meeting with this rather edgy young man, known as Mutt, begins another epic quest for Indy. An old friend of Indy’s, Professor Oxley (aka Ox) has gotten into a spot of bother along with Mutt’s mother. Apparently Ox was looking for the fabled Crystal Skull and had managed to stumble onto it in his various wanderings. According to the tales the crystal skull was taken from the city of Akator located deep in the heart of the Amazon jungle, it was this place that was said to be the influence behind the legend of El Dorado. Mutt gives Indy a letter from Ox, written in an obscure South American dialect and peppered with various diagrams and sigils. It seems that certain forces are interested in this letter, namely the KGB who has managed to track down both Dr Jones and Mutt.
The chase is on as Indy and Mutt seek to put some breathing space between them and their KGB pursuers in order to interpret Ox’s strange scrawl and then find the missing professor, Mutt’s mother and the crystal skull. It will be a journey filled with some startling revelations, not only about the skull but about some of Indiana’s companions. All in all when I went to see this film at a special screening at my local cinema on Sunday 25 May I do admit to having some slight misgivings, all these though were swiftly dispelled as the movie began and Harrison Ford swiftly established that he was still more than capable of filling the boots and hat of the daredevil archaeologist, almost makes me want to take up the study of archaeology myself…
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