Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (***1/2)

INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL

"It's not the years, it's the milage."

** SPOILERS ** SPOILERS ** SPOILERS **

God loves Indiana Jones. I came to that jolly conclusion early in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, when Indy sealed himself in a lead-lined refrigerator and improbably survived a nuclear explosion. Radiation-poisoning-free, mind you. The hazmat team even scrubbed his sankara stones to be sure. God must love Indiana Jones. I suppose when Indy did the Almighty a solid and saved the Ark of the Covenant from falling into Nazi hands all those years ago, God has kept a special lookout for him ever since.

Don't call Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull a comeback, he's been here for years. 19 years have passed for us and for Indy since he and his father rode off into the sunset at the conclusion of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Sadly, Professor Henry Jones and Marcus Brody have passed on. Indy himself is older but more bemused. He's literally seen it all, done it all. Some of the most fascinating stuff for me at the beginning of the film was the revelation that in the interim since we saw him last, Indy never stopped having crazy adventures. In the 1940's he joined the OSS and, as Colonel Indiana Jones, continued to crusade against the Nazis, performing secret missions all over the globe. Man, I'd love to hear those stories, but Indy never has the time to tell any. He's too busy running off on another crazy adventure. 

For some reason, I was approaching Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull like it was Indy's last hurrah. Which it may well be, but Indy himself never gave the slightest indication that he's done with his adventures. He never stopped while we weren't watching and doesn't plan to even now that he has an instant family. He'll just bring 'em along.

The best thing about Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was the 1957 setting. It was the era of beatniks, greasers, the Red Scare, the atom bomb, flying saucers, and men from Mars... rumors of them, anyway. Silly rumors. No such thing. Planting old man Indiana Jones, a pulp magazine relic of the 1930's, right in the middle of it all was more fun than the latter half of the film when they whisked off to South America and wandered onto the sets of Apocalypto. I liked the fight between the jocks and the greasers in the diner that lead to Indy and Mutt Williams fleeing from the KGB on a motorcycle across the campus of Yale, sorry, Marshall College. And I enjoyed the opening sequence where a captured Indy is brought by the KGB to the US Government's secret warehouse in Area 51(!) and how during the entire melee of Indy's escape, they were completely unaware that the Ark of the Covenant was right there the whole time. 

As for the South America portion of the adventure, meh. Indy and company survived quicksand, spooky graves, giant man-eating ants, swordfights between two parallel jeeps driving at breakneck speeds, three waterfalls, Mayan extras on loan from Mel Gibson, and yes, a flying saucer, and a council of 13 aliens with crystal skeletons, which by the way looked suspiciously like the Kamino aliens that cloned Jango Fett and the Clone Army in Attack of the Clones. (I'm sure that was just a coincidence, Mr. Lucas. ) None of it made a lick of sense whatsoever. (I'm sure that was just a coincidence, Mr. Lucas.)

This is the first Indiana Jones movie where they found the artifact in question halfway through and someone had to lug that goddamn crystal skull around half of South America. That seems to be the only reason John Hurt was in the movie. Sometimes the crystal skull was magnetic, sometimes it wasn't. As much as I missed Sean Connery, he probably read the script and saw it was originally gonna be his job to haul around that stupid skull and decided he'd rather play golf and stay retired.

What can you say about Harrison Ford besides he's still got it. He has more of it than he should. I remember after all the fights he had in Raiders of the Lost Ark, a sore Indy needed time to sleep off the beatings he took from the Nazis. Now over two decades older, Indy has the ability to take even more brutal beatings, shake it off, and keep going and going across deserts and jungles without food or rest. Maybe drinking from the Holy Grail had some aftereffects where Indy... oh, who cares. 

No one seemed happier - a little too happy - to be in the movie than Karen Allen, who was the first and best of Indy's lovers and the mother of their son, Henry III, aka Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf). Mutt named himself after a dog the same way Indiana did. What a climactic instant-applause tease where Mutt picked up the famed fedora and Indy snatched it away from him and took it back. That's exactly right. That kid has a long way to go before he can ever fill his father's fedora. 

I liked Cate Blanchett's rapier-wielding Russian villainness and how bold the KGB is in the movie where they just roll around the United States attacking Indiana Jones in the middle of town and somehow don't get captured by the FBI. Then there was Indy's treacherous sidekick played by Ray Winstone. He kept betraying Indy, changing his mind, and betraying him again. It didn't seem to bother Indy all that much though.

Was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull ever going to be the best Indiana Jones movie? No. That just wouldn't have been possible. Was the story involving Mayans, crystal skulls, Spanish conquistadors, El Dorado, and -- *gasp!* How dare they -- aliens! In an Indiana Jones movie! -- ever going to be as easily digestable to most people as the searches for the Ark of the Covenant and especially the Holy Grail? No. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull occasionally mines territory plundered by the under-appreciated Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, where Indy explores the less popular aspects of world mythology and folklore. His adventures can't always be about Judea-Christian artifacts. (Why couldn't Short Round and Willie Scott shown up in a cameo during the wedding scene at the end? As usual, Temple of Doom gets no love.) 

Though it's the least necessary of the saga, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is absolutely 100% an Indiana Jones movie. They're older, maybe a little crazier now, and (unfortunately) a lot more into CGI than they used to be, but overall, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a return to form for Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Harrison Ford. A return to what they invented and still do better than anyone (though not as well as their younger selves) - the old fashioned, globe-trotting, pseudo-history, I'll-be-damned, kind of adventures where anything goes.

Iron Man (***1/2)

IRON MAN

I Am Iron Man

Think about all the superheroes of the last decade who made it onto the big screen. Would you want to be buddies with any of them? Peter Parker? He's no fun unless he's wearing red and blue leotards and hanging upside down from the ceiling. Clark Kent? He's too busy moping around and stalking his ex-girlfriend. Wolverine? Maybe, except he'd probably stab you thrice in the chest if you looked at him cock-eyed. Bruce Banner? Yeah, that'll turn out well. The Fantastic Four? Daredevil? Ghost Rider? Fuck all those freaks. Losers, the lot of them. Bruce Wayne? Hell no. He seems cool on the outset, but that guy clearly has issues. Iron Man finally introduced me to a movie superhero I wanna hang out with: Tony Stark.

Tony Stark is the coolest cat in superhero movieland. More money than Bruce Wayne, smarter than Bruce Wayne, way more fun to be around than Bruce Wayne. Parties in Vegas, a private plane complete with stripper pole and stripper stewardesses, a cooler, more high tech house and underground lair than Wayne Manor and that dank cave underneath it. A way, way cooler superhero suit than Wayne. Stark's parents are dead too, but unlike Wayne, Stark got over it. Just about in every way, Tony Stark trumps Mr. Wayne. (No disrespect to Alfred and what he brings to the table, but turning Stark's faithful butler Jarvis in the comics into the AI of Stark's home network, voiced by Paul Bettany, was a stroke of genius.) The only negative for Stark is that freaky hole in his chest but he still manages to turn it into a fashion statement.

In Tony Stark, Robert Downey, Jr. created the most likeable rogue ever to leap from the pages of a comic book onto the big screen. The very first scene where Stark is introduced in the humvee (funvee, not the humdrumvee), we instantly like him. His transformation into Iron Man; more importantly, from a rich, brilliant, uncaring ne'er-do-well into a rich, brilliant guy who does care, is a terrific spin on the hoary old "with great power comes great responsibility" chestnut Spider-Man flogged to death in three movies. I'm not sure if the script was just very well written or if director Jon Favreau encouraged Downey to improvise his dialogue, but Stark had the sharpest, cleverst snappy patter of any movie superhero since... well, ever.

The rest of the cast was also top to bottom stellar, from Jeff Bridges as Obediah Stane, Terrence Howard as James "Rhodey" Rhodes, to Leslie Bibb as the ballbusting reporter Stark slept with. Even Gwyneth Paltrow as the unfortunately name Pepper Potts didn't rake on my nerves, that is until the third act when she want from supercompetent Girl Friday to fretting damsel in distress: "Oh Tony! Oh no! You could die!" Lady, just shut up and turn on the reactor!

Still, some of best interaction Downey had was with himself, endlessly jabbering with, instructing, or scolding his cadre of robot helpers. While probably the best scene in the movie was when Stark had Pepper remove his robot heart, the most oddly touching moment in the movie was when his little robot brought Stark that same robot heart when he was dying.

The sequence with Iron Man versus the jet fighters was amazing to watch. Iron Man's battle with the Iron Monger wasn't just an excuse for special effects action, but there was logic and strategy behind the characters' behavior. (Stark was running on 48% power on his older robot heart. The callback to icing up in the ionosphere was clever, and it failed to kill Stane as it did Stark. When Iron Man jumped on the Iron Monger's back and yanked out wires, they were specific and bought him necessary time.) But it's a testament to how good the acting and storytelling were that the CGI never overwhelmed the human story of Tony Stark.

Seeing Iron Man in action blowing up tanks was great but there is no "Iron Man" without Tony Stark, and Stark was always the most interesting person in the picture. But for a guy with no superpowers and a fatal hole in his chest, Tony Stark sure could absorb repeated blunt force trauma. Considering how many times he crashed into walls, cars, buildings, etc. at high velocity, his bones should be powder. He should be paralyzed. Or you know, dead.

I loved the ending: Tony Stark ignoring the (comic's silly) cover story that Iron Man is his bodyguard and declaring: "I am Iron Man." Brilliant. Brilliant because given the universe the movie set up, it was impossible for Stark to maintain a secret identity. Also, I've always felt secret identities are generally stupid. Tony Stark wears an armored suit and flies around fighting evil. He doesn't care who knows it.

The fanboy in me was thrilled with how deftly Iron Man laid down the groundwork for not just its sequels but the scope of the larger Marvel Comics universe of movies on the way. I liked the running gag of the acronym for SHIELD no one could remember. I liked how the terrorist cell that kidnapped Stark was called the Ten Rings, a setup perhaps for the Mandarin, Iron Man's Chinese arch foe in the comics who wields ten alien rings of power. Who in the know didn't snicker at Rhodey's "Next time, baby" when he saw the grey armor for War Machine?

If you stayed through the credits, you saw the appearance of Samuel L. Jackson as Col. Nick Fury, who wants to tell Tony Stark about the "Avengers Initiative." Never has a comic book universe's translation into a cohesive movie universe been attempted like this, and it seems very exciting. (If the quality of the rest of the movies holds up.) And even if the other Marvel movies blow, Iron Man is still a state-of-art movie marvel all its own.

Jumper (**)

JUMPER

Anywhere But Here

What if Anakin Skywalker could teleport? The answer is even more banal than you guessed. Jumper sucks, man. It takes the promising idea of people having the ability to teleport and goes nowhere with it. There are two main "jumpers" in the movie, Hayden Christensen and a British guy, and they're both monosyllabic douchebags. I lost count of the number of times they said "Huh?" and "Wha?" Was that actually written in the script or was that shit they added themselves? Turns out there's a war going on between jumpers and people who hate jumpers, lead by Samuel L. Jackson. The Star Wars prequel reunion goes about as well as you think. In the Padme Amidala role is poor Rachel Bilson. She mostly has to stand around looking confused at Christensen. There are no interesting characters, no wit. The action is bland and usually incoherent. There was some interesting stuff in how Jumpers can fight, involving teleporting vehicles and heavy objects at their enemies, but it's not done particularly well. I kind of dug how upon learning he could teleport, Christensen embarked on a career as a bank robber, using his powers to get rich, and quick. That's a more logical thing a high school dropout with superpowers would do than put on tights and fight crime. But Jumper immediately committed two of my biggest pet peeves in movies: 1) voice over narration for no good reason and 2) casting younger versions of the characters in flashbacks who look absolutely nothing like the lead actors. Does AnnaSophia Robb look like a young Rachel Bilson? No. Does this kid look like young Darth Vader? No, he doesn't. Why didn't they hire this kid instead?

Michael Clayton (***)

MICHAEL CLAYTON

"I am Shiva, The God of Death." 

Took me long enough to see it but I enjoyed Michael Clayton overall. Didn't think it was great or anything but I thought it was mostly solid, if occasionally dull. Michael Clayton's plot is basically the same as Erin Brockovich, though I rather enjoyed a movie about adults talking about adult problems and doing adult things. The acting was strong throughout. George Clooney was very good, but not Best Actor good. No way he could have beaten Daniel Day-Lewis' performance in There Will Be Blood. Tilda Swinton and Tom Wilkenson were both real good. The worst thing about Michael Clayton to me, besides that stupid line "I am Shiva, the God of Death" (which is said twice and draws unintended guffaws each time), was its structure: Michael Clayton opens with an attempt on Clooney's life that fails. The rest of the movie is a flashback that takes us back to that point, which then plays out in an extended, music-swelling, would-be nail-biting sequence of "Oh my god! Will George Clooney be killed?!" Oh wait, we already know he isn't because we saw he isn't in the first 10 minutes. Kind of let the air out of the balloon. If I may paraphrase Homer Simpson's observation of the famous bomb in the toilet scene in Lethal Weapon 2: Before Michael Clayton, I never knew there could be a bomb in my car's GPS. But now I check every time.

The Other Boleyn Girl (*)

THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL

PB&J

I was warned The Other Boleyn Girl was horrible so I can't say I was surprised, but dude. Dude! It's horrible. I can't remember the last time I saw a movie so staggeringly incompetent on every level. Acting, directing, writing, editing, cinematography, all just fucking horrible. Each department competing with the other to deliver the worst movie they could. How does a studio exective see the dailies of this and not pull the plug immediately? People shit all over Elizabeth: The Golden Age a few months ago, but whatever, man. At least Cate Blanchett and Clive Owen can fucking act. Seriously, if the two lead actresses weren't already established, if they weren't "already acclaimed actresses" Natalie Portman and Scarlett Johannsen, they'd probably never work again. This movie would be a career-killer for actresses not as famous. The casting director should have been the first to be fired, followed immediately by Portman and Johannsen's British accent voice coach. Then everyone else. To cover for the leads' accent troubles, all the British actors in the movie had to turn their accents down and sound more American. The mishmashed result was poison for the ears, the kind that killed Hamlet's father. Eric Bana's Henry VIII was a grouchy, underwritten dumbass. The whole movie he's so irascible, he might as well have turned into the Hulk. It might have improved the movie if he had. But it's not all P, B & J's fault, they got absolutely no help from the crew. The lighting department apparently forgot to bring any lights to the set, creating a gloomy, underlit eyesore. It's edited by a retarded monkey and directed by a blind, deaf-mute. For a sexy tale of Tudor-era adultery based on a trashy novel, where the fuck was the sex? Portman and Johannsen unsuprisingly show nothing, and every time any sex is implied, the movie goes into blurry vision before cutting away entirely. By the end of this turd, they start putting up title cards that added the final insults to the audience's intelligence. My favorites were: "After separating from the Catholic Church, Henry VIII changed the face of England forever." Really? Tell me more. And they don't. The worst was the very last title card: "Henry never got the male heir he wanted but he did give England an heir who reigned for 45 years. Her name was..." Seriously, dot dot dot. Wait for it: "Elizabeth." Holy shit, man.

10,000 BC (*)

10,000 BC

The First Action Zero

Where do I even start ripping on this thing? That in 10,000 BC the cave men had shiny white teeth and stylishly trimmed goatees instead of bushy beards? (Were Gillette and Crest whitening strips invented 10,000 years ago? Apparently.) That everyone spoke the same language, which sounded exactly like English, except the villains, who all had subtitles? How about the ostrich attack? Look out! Giant ostriches! Then there was the big finale in Egypt, where there were no Egyptians. Instead, African slaves and wooly mammonths worked together to build the Sphinx and the Great Pyramids for the main villain, the "god" referred to only as "the Almighty." The Almighty has priests who wandered out of the Kali India set of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Also, the Almighty was an old white guy and went down like a bitch. It's hard to blame the actors for this mess. I actually like the two leads. Steven Strait was Warren Peace in Sky High, a pretty good teen-aimed Disney superhero movie. He plays D'Leh, the hunter who slayed the mighty snuffleupagus. Strait wants to get d'layed by Evolet (Camilla Belle), the only hot, blue eyed girl in pre-history. Camilla Belle gives me a wooly mammoth so I get why Strait chased her across half of Africa, or where ever they were, when she got kidnapped and brought to Egypt. I'd love to see Belle in a good movie one day but who knows when that day will come? The story of 10,000 BC has been told 10,000 times before in 10,000 other shitty movies, and a few good ones. The action involves redundant chases where strategically dirty-looking cave men are attacked by wooly mammonths, giant ostriches and sabre toothed tigers. All the action sequences were already done better in three Jurassic Parks. There are big laughs because the dialogue, characterizations, and well, everything else, are retarded. There's a whole deal where Strait managed to assemble an army of spear-chucking African stereotypes. They watch helplessly as Belle and their friends float down a river on boats. Then they walk through the desert after them and get lost. Hey stupids, why didn't you all just walk along side the river? Later, Strait frees all the slaves in Egypt and they storm the pyramids. There's a giant boat docked in there somehow. So they set fire to the boat. Hey stupids, you could have all gotten on the giant boat and sailed to your homes. Now you all have to walk through the desert. The ending is the biggest laugh riot: Belle is shot with an arrow in the back and dies. Aw, after all that, Belle died?! Strait never even got to do her prehistoric-like. But no, Belle then comes back to life when the old shaman woman from Strait's village the movie kept cutting away to drops dead and magically gives Belle her last breath. Belle opens her eyes and she's fine. Hey stupids, isn't there still an arrow stuck in her back? I didn't see anyone pull it out, is all. The audience at the 10:45am $5 matinee of 10,000 BC hated the movie. (I was the only person in the theatre. It's cold and rainy in Boston and everyone else had the good sense to stay home.)

With Or Without You

With Or Without You 

March 5, 2008

A funny thing has happened to me recently in regards to my U2 fandom: I've finally come around to liking "With Or Without You."

For 20 years I've hated that song. There are lots of U2 songs I love ("A Sort of Homecoming", "Where The Streets Have No Name", "The Fly", "Ultraviolet (Light My Way)" for example), lots of songs I like a lot ("All I Want Is You", "Elevation", "The Sweetest Thing" for example), and a good plenty of songs I'm fairly indifferent to (half of the "All That You Can't Leave Behind" album, most of the "Pop" album for example). That's right, I don't even hate that electronica shit on "Pop." But since virtually the first day I heard "With Or Without You" 20+ years ago, I've hated it.

"With Or Without You" is arguably U2's signature song. Probably their most beloved when it gets right down to it. (I prefer the similar, anthemic "One", myself, which is probably the band's second most popular song.) "With Or Without You" was the song that launched "The Joshua Tree", the album that made U2 a superband back in 1987. Rolling Stone says it's number 131 on the list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All-Time. (Rolling Stone also says "One" is number 36 on that same list and the #1 song of the 1990's.) "With Or Without You" is also a concert staple, a sing-along anthem for live crowds. It's both a romantic song and a breakup song. Still, I hated it.

For years, I refused to listen to that song. The first time I had to (before U2 3D) was at the 2001 concert for the "Elevation" tour I attended at the TD Banknorth Garden (it may still have been the FleetCenter back then). I was seated one row in front of a couple of muscled up jock dudes. When U2 began playing "With Or Without You", these two jock dudes's faces suddenly lit up and they hugged each other. That was weird. I guess that song really brings out the passion of the jocks. While the rest of the arena sang along to the song, I pretty much stood there impassively waiting for it to end. Boy, did I hate that song.

So why did I hate it so much? My main beef with it is the lyrics. I never understood what the point of the song was. "I can't live with or without you"? What the hell does that even mean? Logically, you can do one or both. People found this notion or this song somehow romantic or touching or tragic. It never made sense to me. "I can't live with or without you"? It sounds like an anthem for quitters.

Anyway, what changed? The first time I noticed that I'd softened on "With Or Without You" was when I watched U2 3D on the IMAX. In my review, I wrote: "...it was touching to see Bono physically spent, his voice quivering to make the final notes of "With Or Without You", letting the audience do most of the work (which they gladly do)..." And I meant it. I was moved by how the Buenos Aires audience reacted to the song. Funny how I wasn't moved when I was there live but the 3D crowd reaction impressed me. Bono didn't even perform "With Or Without You" very well, and I don't think he puts that much effort into singing it anymore. He might be sick of it. It happens. However, I was impressed with it at U2 3D for whatever reason.

As the universe can often do, it decided to fuck with me. For the entire month of February, whenever I was alone in the car and turned on the radio, I heard two songs for some reason: Tracy Chapman's "Fast Car" (I won't be writing a "Fast Car" essay) and "With Or Without You." Instead of changing the channel on the latter, as I usually do, I listened to the fucking song. And I did it again the next time it came on. Then I started to like it.

I still don't like that one line. But I've come around on "With Or Without You". Did the 180. I don't skip it on my iPod anymore. I don't change the channel on the radio. I won't be scowling with my arms crossed next time U2 plays it in concert. It is a beautifully composed, haunting rock song by a rock and roll band at the very point of achieving their maximum potential. Of course, you already knew that. Deep down, so did I.

And you give yourself away