By now, twelve years after it hit theaters, every human being on Earth is aware thatIndiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skullwas disappointing. It’s just a fact, written in stone. Babies are born every day implanted with the knowledge that someone surviving a nuclear blast inside a refrigerator is dumb. But what’s been lost over the years is a key component of that momentous disappointment: The fact that the first 15 minutes ofCrystal Skullare Good, Actually. Not only that, but the opening also establishes, executes, and plays around with every single theme a movie about an older, slower Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) should be interested in. Seriously. Time it out. Right as the camera pans down to the Ark of the Covenant, just cut the screen to black and play some credits in your head. You’ll understand perfectly the man Doctor Jones has become in the years since the Ark was locked away in the first place.
Admittedly, the film gets off to a rocky startimmediately. The CGI groundhog is unforgivable. One of the worst ways to open a movie is to ensure the audience that not only will the CGI be bad, it will also be unnecessary. But, BUT, you’re instantly swept away from that nonsense into an open-road thrill ride that’s pure popcorn-mode Spielberg. Cinematographer Janusz Kaminski straight zooms next to a car of exuberant 1950s youths, blasting Elvis Prestley and playing grab-ass with the truck of soldiers next to them on an endless stretch of Nevada road. It establishes place and time, but more importantly, it establishes a sense of breezy, summer-ish nostalgia that’s important to what comes next.
Crystal Skulleventually becomes a movie that’s completely reliant on nostalgia—just coasting on seeing Harrison Ford in an old costume—but Jones' introduction is the only time nostalgia is usedagainstthe audience. The soldiers reveal themselves as Russian agents and slaughter their way into Area 51, pulling a prisoner out of their trunk in the process. We don’t see him, we see his old dusty fedora, a recognizable piece of action iconography if there ever was one.John Williams' equally iconic horns kick in, another cue, something not only familiar but tapping into thejoythat original trilogy produced. Finally, Spielberg swoops around to show Jones' shadowed silhouette against a car, a shot he used inRaiders of the Lost ArkandThe Last Crusade. You’re freakingprimedto see Indiana Jones when the camera finally finds Ford’s face, grayer and more wrinkled than you remembered. Williams' score cuts out immediately. It’s like one level removed from a record scratch. From that, the movie sets up a much more interesting movie with a quick six-line exchange between Jones and his partner, Mac McHale (Ray Winstone).
McHale: This ain’t gonna' be easy.
Jones: Not as easy as it used to be.
McHale: Well, we’ve been through worse.
Jones: Yeah, when?
McHale: Flensburg. There were twice as many.
Jones: We were younger.
That’s it. That’s the whole thing!Crystal Skullsets up the idea of an Indiana Jones battling evil in spite of his old bones, an achingly human element that might have grounded the sci-fi-heavy “interdimensional beings” plot. Instead, the movie proceeds to reject the passage of time as a concept for two-plus hours. There’s even a wonderful moment in the movie’s first big set-piece, a chase through Area 51’s artifact stacks, where Jones tries to whip-swing on to a moving truck and misjudged the distance, swinging backward instead like an absolute doofus. It’s not like I want to see aninfirmIndiana Jones drawing a pistol from a wheelchair. There’s always going to be a thrill to seeing Harrison Ford, at any age, sprinting through machine gun fire. Even now, at 77 years old, I’m confident the man could knock my fucking lights out. But humanize the character in a realistic way. TheIndiana Jonesmovies are classics for the way its main hero fumbles as much as he soars, but you can’t do that dance the exact same way 30 years later. The most boring choice is asking the audience to ignore what it’s seeing right in front of its eyes. It’s ironic that the movie starts to tip into absurdity right at the moment McHale, trying to warn a Russian about Indy’s recklessness, screams: “You don’t know him! You don’t know him!”
I’m not saying I “know” Indiana Jones better than Steven Spielberg, because that would make me a psychopath, but you do have to question the entire rest of this movie. The very next image is a man in his 70s clambering up a warehouse roof like he’s competing onAmerican Ninja Warrior, a subtle piece of foreshadowing to the actual spider monkeys that would later swing alongsideShia LaBeoufin the most embarrassing image ever committed to film.
Look, I love Spielberg, andCrystal Skullor noCrystal Skull, nine times out of ten anyone else but him trying to tackleIndiana Joneswould be a five-alarm nope-fire in my head. But the news thatJames Mangoldis getting a crack atIndiana Jones 5is intriguing, primarily because of what the filmmaker achieved inLogan, theX-Menmovie starringHugh Jackmanas a Wolverine at the end of his rope. That film took a character that literallydoes not ageand injected a potent weariness into his every movement.Loganis still badass, its action scenes still rip, but at its center,Loganis about the toll life takes and figuring out what you’ll leave behind. The best thing Mangold could do is capitalize on the idea thatCrystal Skulloffered up for about 15 minutes. Because sometimes, honey, it’s about the yearsandthe mileage.
For more onIndiana Jones, check outour ranking of every film in the franchise.
