Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (3½ Stars)

This is the fourth film in the Indiana Jones series, made with a long gap after the third film. 19 years! Was it necessary to revive the film franchise? That depends on who you ask. It was money in the bank for the film studios. I suspect that there were letters and emails being sent for years begging Steven Spielberg to do it again.

Does it still have the magic of the old films? Sort of. Steven Spielberg has never made a bad film. In my eyes he's the most reliable film director who has ever lived. He knows how to make films, he follows the required steps and he makes a quality film every time. However, he never takes risks. By avoiding risks he doesn't make the truly great films like Quentin Tarantino, but if he took risks he might make the occasional bad film. We need a Steven Spielberg who's consistently good. We also need the risk-takers who occasionally create works of brilliance.

As for "Crystal Skull" itself (I prefer to abbreviate the film title), it's a fun adventure. Harrison Ford travels round the world -- this time to South America -- to prevent mystical archaeological artefacts from falling into the hands of evil empires. In the previous three films the enemies were the Nazis. In "Crystal Skull" the enemies are the Russians. When the film was made there were criticisms from Russia that Russia was demonised, as if all Russians were evil. So what? The film is set in 1957, at the height of the Cold War, and Russia was generally regarded as the world's Evil Empire.

The main representative of the Evil Empire is Irina Spalko, played admirably by Cate Blanchett. She's dressed in an unflattering grey suit, more typical of Chinese Communism than Russian Communism, but the very unsexiness of her outfit makes it bizarrely appealing. She's a caricature, much like the villains of the early James Bond films. All that's missing is a ridiculous name, but Steven Spielberg doesn't do that. That's a shame. She could have been called Irina Spankyu.

An unusual aspect in this film is that instead of dealing with only mystical artefacts there are aliens involved, making this the first Indiana Jones science fiction film. The crystal skull in the title is the real skull of a visitor from another planet.

I've decided to give the film a relatively low rating because of my personal reaction to the film. It ticked all the boxes, I couldn't find any fault with it, but while watching it I found myself getting bored. I'm used to the Spielberg style, so it seemed too smooth and too predictable to me. I doubt I'll watch it again. Maybe, maybe not.

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