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player ready...‘INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL’ **
The following is a capsule version of Tribune critic Michael Phillips’ “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” review, which ran in Monday’s Tempo section. For the full review, visit chicagotribune.com/movies.
It would’ve been fantastic if the new Indiana Jones movie had turned out gangbusters. Failing that, a good, solid sequel would’ve been nice — proof that a handsomely graying collection of world-class cinematic entertainers were right to haul out the fedora and the bullwhip for one more adventure.
But “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” extracts only a modest amount of serial-inspired enjoyment from its cockamamie story, provided by George Lucas, involving aliens, the lost golden city of El Dorado, the Red Menace and the greaser sidekick played by Shia LaBeouf. “Same old, same old,” mutters Harrison Ford during a pause in the derring-do in this disappointingly humorless sequel. Same old, same old is right.
The new film begins in 1957 Nevada. On an Air Force nuclear test blast site, the Russians force a kidnapped Indy and his colleague (Ray Winstone) to locate a crystal skull inside a vast warehouse. The skull comes from Out There — take that, upcoming “X Files” movie! — and holds the key to eternal power and limitless knowledge. The rest of the skulls are down south, so Indy and his nemeses high-tail it down to Peru, down the Amazon, down into sand pits, anthills with giant speedy killer ants, over three waterfalls, one after another.
There’s no lack of activity in “Crystal Skull.” But in between frenetic action scenes (the best is the simplest, involving a car, a motorcycle and a college campus), you have to endure some pretty tedious “so what you’re saying … ” explanations of the skull’s origins. “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Exposition” is more like it.
Too bad, because Ford and Cate Blanchett (as a Russian mind-control baddie) are certainly ready to play. But the script is a weight tied around their ankles. And John Hurt! As the addle-brained holy fool who guides his old pal Indy to where the skulls are, he must say with a straight face: “No more forever waiting. Soon now.” He’s the British Yoda.
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