Director: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Karen Allen, John Hurt, Shia LaBeouf
Studio: Lucasfilm/Paramount 13866
Video: Anamorphic/enhanced for 16:9 color, 1080p HD
Audio: English Dolby TrueHD 5.1, French DD 5.1, Spanish DD 5.1
Subtitles: English English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese
Extras: Feature Disc – Pre-production featurette, Indian Jones Timelines chart & features, Trailers (HD), The Return of a Legend featurette (HD); Disc 2 – Production Diary: Making Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (HD), Warrior Makeup (HD), The Crystal Skulls (HD), Iconic Props (HD), Adventure in Post Production (HD), The Effects of Indy (HD), Closing: Team Indy (HD), Pre-Visualization Sequences, Galleries, Production Photos, Portraits, Behind-the-Scenes photos
Length: 122 minutes
Rating: *****
It had been a decade since the third of the Indy movies and Steven Spielberg felt he had pretty much put the franchise behind him. But both George Lucas and Harrison Ford kept urging him to consider bringing Indy back for another film. A stimulus to Lucas was being involved in having Ford back to shoot opening and closing sequences for a Young Indiana Jones series. Eventually Spielberg gave in and the result is another entry in the Indiana Jones series that is spectacular fun and doesn’t have Indy slowing down a bit in the many action scenes, even at age 65.
The script writer worked with Spielberg and Lucas to find a new, later period for the action than the 30s and 40s of the earlier films. They hit on the 1950s and the McCarthy hearings, Red scares, cold war, and early atomic tests, and that included plenty of old cars from the period as well as the appropriate clothes and furnishings. Some of the plot elements and settings came from the sci-fi B-movies of the 50s. In fact, Lucas wanted flying saucers and the whole alien element to be at the center of the new movie, and wanted to call it Indian Jones and the Flying Saucers! After many script changes the wrap up of the story featured beings from another dimension rather than outer space, and the sci-fi aspect came up only at the very end of the film.
Spielberg realized he couldn’t do Nazis for the villains again, and since this was the 1950s it was natural to use Russians instead. They are led by a brilliant villainess played by Cate Blanchett, who is seeking the same mystical crystal skull sought by Indy, in an effort to gain mind control over their enemies. In trying to escape from the Russians at “Area 51” Indy is stuck in a mockup village which he realizes is intended for an atom bomb test. He holes up in a lead-lined refrigerator. Back at the university where he teaches archeology he is again pursued by other Russians. He teams up with a young biker (Shia LaBeouf) and they end up in South America on the trail of the crystal skull. The Russians are also looking for it and the rest of the film moves between Peru and the upper Amazon, with plenty of amazing chases and extraordinary escapes. The feminine interest is Indy’s old love Marion, who happens to be the young biker’s mother, and is as feisty as ever.
Great fun all around, and the many special features will keep fans occupied for a long time. You could spend hours with just the Timeline items. Spielberg reveals that this was one of the few major motion pictures which was still all edited on 35mm film rather than using video. He also reports that the one new element involved in the production was the widespread use of wires and harnesses in the action sequences. Evidently these came originally from the Hong Kong kung fu movie makers and are now being widely used in Hollywood – making it safer for actors to do many of their own stunts and requiring less cgi creation for special effects – just erasing the wires in the images. As with many other Blu-ray releases, more of of the bonus features are now in HD, as is the main feature.
– John Sunier
