By Melanie on February 16, 2010
As the credits began to roll on Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, a sad realization hit me. Raiders of the Lost Ark was released the same year I was born. When Indy rode off into the sunset in The Last Crusade, I was still in the single digits. And now as the whip-wielding, fedora-clad hero exits the screen for the last time, one last great adventure behind him, let’s just say that I don’t have to worry about curfew any more.
The great news is that Kingdom is what you come to expect of brain trust of Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Harrison Ford. It doesn’t surpass Raiders, but this time around it’s not trying to. The visual effects might have been upgraded a little, but deep in this film’s soul is a love for classic storytelling of heroes and villains, exotic locations and the occasional oddball. For the fourth and final installment, Spielberg goes out with as big a bang as it started.
The movie starts off in a secret military base where our hero Henry “Indiana” Jones is taken hostage by Soviet spies. They seek something that Jones had found ten years earlier, something that they believe will secure them power to “rule the world”. Of course Jones isn’t known for standing idly by and quickly makes a mess of a pretty bad situation. Just how he survives a nuclear bomb is worth the price of admission in itself. But when a young man named Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf) tells him that a former colleague of his is being held prisoner in South America by people looking for a city of gold, the real adventure begins. From wild motorcycle rides, we get to trap-riddled puzzles, ancient Mayan temples, swashbuckling on running motor vehicles with a raven-haired Soviet Villainess (Cate Blanchett), man-eating ants, and a few old friends. Kingdom is as much the roller-coaster ride that we have been on the first three adventures.
My last statement isn’t a complaint. Even Raiders wasn’t very interested in complexity. It relishes in it’s earnestness and simplicity. But it still remains to be said, don’t go to this film looking for something more than a two-hour wild ride. You’ll know every secret long before it’s revealed even if someone doesn’t spoil it for you. There is no challenge involved here nor should there be. Speed Racer made the terrible mistake of trying to be more complex than it needed to be, thinking of itself more than it really was. Spielberg knows exactly what makes Indiana Jones what it is.
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