Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Arriving as the 4th installment in a beloved franchise, after nineteen years of anticipation, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull probably always had an uphill battle ahead of it. Surely Steven Spielberg, the canniest commercial director of our time, was aware of the pitfalls of revisiting the dog he'd so gracefully put to sleep, with a ride into the sunset at the end of the aptly titled Last Crusade? His partner, George Lucas, creator of the titular character and source of the screen stories for each of the previous films, had recently capped off another botched return to past glories with the widely (and rightly!) reviled Star Wars prequel trilogy—didn't Steven worry for a moment that another Indy might meet the same fate?

Based on the fruits of his labor, the man never had a moment's doubt. From its opening moments, the fourth Jones adventure proceeds more or less the way its (much) younger brothers did – that is to say, breathlessly: a drag race gives way to a shoot-out and a demolition derby inside a warehouse, ending in – no joke! – a nuclear blast. A trunk opens, revealing a disheveled Henry Jones, Jr. (a winningly haggard Harrison Ford), looking a bit more weathered than usual. We're in 1957 Nevada, and our hero is staring at a couple dozen machine guns, wielded by a coterie of Soviet troops. Their leader, one "Dr. Irina Spalko" (Cate Blanchett, mimicking Boris & Natasha), has brought Jones to a government storehouse to help her find – what, exactly?

That ambiguity is the start, unfortunately, of a trail of confusion and red herrings that repeatedly threaten to derail a movie that still manages to somehow keep afloat. Buoyed by equal parts nostalgia and self-effacing humor, Crystal Skull is that rare thing: an utter mess that works despite itself. David Koepp's clumsy hodgepodge of a script is derived from an original story by Lucas, and in its tangled web of exposition, its awkward transitions and fuzzy logic, the plot of the 4th Indy is very much in keeping with the blueprint set by those awful Star Wars prequels: a cliché milkshake sprinkled with sugary CGI. With a few exceptions, we've seen everything here before –booby-trapped temples, cobwebbed gravesites, ultimate power, etc—but this time, it all feels a bit stale.

The Spielberg on display in Crystal Skull is something we haven't seen before: an aging professional. I think he's moved on to the last stage of his career, the one that we've seen so many great directors enter; think Hawks with Hatari or Hitchcock with Marnie – fatally flawed films that, one suspects, might have become masterpieces ten years before. Flashes of the old magic remain – that initial drag race, a giddy motorcycle chase early on – but for large portions of Crystal Skull, the great Beard seems to be running on cruise control. Gone is the surgical cutting in the set pieces (a late, ambitious truck chase is stitched together with glaringly obvious CGI), the smooth handling of atmosphere (these dusty tombs and temples lack the reverent awe with which they were revealed in the earlier installments), and worst of all, taste. A late Tarzan homage will go down as the single silliest thing Spielberg has ever put to film—and this is the guy who made Hook. His eye remains sharp – but judging from the long stretches of visual drabness, the sets shot like, well, sets, and the lazy rhythms of the picture's dull middle third, the most successful director of our time may have finally, sadly, peaked. This is what a master in decline looks like. But despite Lucas and Spielberg's rustiness (or laziness), they have an ace up their collective sleeves: Harrison Ford.

A strong argument could be made that the success of the original Indy and Star Wars films rests squarely on Ford's shoulders. Wryly tossing off a silly line, gamely sucker-punching his way through a set piece, flashing a curt grin in the face of oncoming disaster—Ford held those pictures together with aplomb, bringing a charmingly human face to a set of monolithic blockbusters, single-handedly keeping them from toppling over under the weight of their own ambitions. More than one reviewer remarked, on the occasion of the Star Wars prequels, that his roguish presence was sorely missed. Sadly, for the past decade-and-a-half, Ford has been a fading star, aging grimly before our eyes, dating women half his age, wearing (gasp!) an earring. Somehow, though, returning to the character that made him a star has re-awoken Ford's inner charm. The bored-looking grump has been shed in favor of the roguish charmer he always was. If Crystal Skull is a success—and I think on balance, it is—the credit goes to its star, shooting now one last time instead of fading. If only the same could be said for its producer and director.