This film has been getting a bit of a bashing in some quarters, so if the main focus of your interest is finding out if its any good? Then yes, it is. I went to see this film last week with a group of friends and we all came away having enjoyed it.
That said, its not a patch on the first two, and probably not the film is should have been.
Now, before I go any further, I should start by declaring my vested interests and biases…
Namely, I am a novelist who writes period action adventure novels, like the Indiana Jones series, or more accurately, inspired by the H. Rider Haggard novels in this genre: King Solomon’s Mines, She, Allan Quartermain and more.
Not only that, but I set my books in the 1930s, and the field of Archaeology plays a significant role.
In a nutshell… the Indiana Jones style of archaeological adventure story is a genre that I’m passionate about, so please forgive my enthusiasm.
But first, what’s good about this film?
The film opens in classic style, with a computer generated version of Indiana Jones being captured by the Nazi’s as they load several trucks worth of treasures onto a train to send back to the fatherland.
The prisoner has a bag over his head, but its obviously going to be Dr Jones, and then the bag is removed, and the de-aged Harrison Ford in the titular role is revealed, everyone knows what’s coming.
I’m not going to give a blow by blow account of how the film unfolds, but what I will say, is that the strangeness of seeing a young Harrison Ford is there, and it does last for several minutes. But as Dr Jones escapes from his captors and causes his usual chaos as he attempts to retrieve a stolen artifact from the speeding train full of Nazi soldiers, it doesn’t take long before you’re completely immersed in the story and the action, and the idea that the main character is computer generated… that’s soon forgotten.
This opening sequence, which last a surprisingly long time, is right on the button Indiana Jones action at its best, and for me the best bit of the film.
What follows takes us into Indy’s future. Its 1969, and our hero is now a changed and older man, nearing the end of his teaching career, clearly bitter about something, while surrounded by the youth and optimism of new generation.
This is where the importance of the artefact rescued from the train comes back to haunt the good Dr, as one of the Nazi scientists re-patriated to the US under Operation Paperclip now emerges as the antagonist of the piece. Who wants to find the artefact in order to go back in time to changed the past.
Queue a chase across New York, travel to Tangier, then Greece, for more chase scenes, then Spain and the big climax to the movie.
And these scenes are good, entertaining bits of the film, the setting in Tangier, Athens and Spain are all well done, the locations are vivid and exciting, and the characters, both good guys and bad, are reasonably credible.
Finally, once all the action is complete, the bad guys defeated, and history preserved, I think the very end of the film is rounded off nicely.
What’s not so good about this film?
This is where it could all start to sound a bit negative…
For starters, I think the big picture stuff isn’t quite right with this film. What I mean by that, is that while its good to see a computer generated version of Indy as a young man again, there’s no denying that Harrison Ford is now much older, and as such the version of Indiana Jones in this film is also much older… but he doesn’t act any older.
One comment by one of the friends I saw the film with, was that there was a bit too much action, and I think this is spot on.
The Indiana Jones in this film is clearly well into his sixties, as a minimum, but within minutes of receiving his retirement present from work, he’s jumping onto the back of horse and racing through the city streets, jumping into and our of the subway, just like the young Indy might have done… but now it jars a bit, because what might have been an incredible feat of daring do for the young man, just doesn’t seem even remotely credible for the older man.
Now, if the plot had foreshadowed this somehow, by showing the aging hero in some suitably athletic pursuit beforehand, to let us know that he’s still very much a physical being, then maybe. But that’s not what the film does, instead it introduces the older man by showing him having fallen asleep in his armchair, only to be rudely awoken by his neighbours, thus emphasising his age and lack of energy.
This same… disjointedness, repeats throughout the film. Indy being tired and old one minute, then completing some heroic act the next.
This is where the film misses a trick...
One of the traditional trade off’s of getting older, is the wisdom that comes with age, and this I think could have been used to re-balanced the film…
An older and wiser Dr Jones taking on an adventure with a younger and more athletic companion, who lacks the older man’s wisdom and therefore ends up doing everything the hard way. This, I think, would have been a much more credible dynamic.
Indy could still have his moments, but by using his head more and his fists a bit less, the character would have been more believable.
One final point!
This will probably be an insignificant point for most viewers, but as someone who loves this genre, I have to take issue with the gizmo at the heart of the story - The Dial of Destiny.
In the film this gizmo is a large brass mechanism supposedly invented by Archimedes and referred to as the Antikethyra mechanism.
Now, this is real thing, it was discovered in 1901 as a large lump of rock and metal which appeared to contain gearing, and was later studied, conserved and x-rayed to reveal it as an intricate mechanism for tracking the calendar, moon phases and possibly even the movement of the planets.
For anyone with an interest in archaeology, its a well known artefact.
The problem I have with this, is that its such a well known artefact, from a well-known and understood period in history, that turning this into a magical gizmo just grates a bit.
In contrast, the first three Indiana Jones films (lets just pretend number 4 never happened) feature artefacts from myth and legend, the Ark of the Covenant, The Sankara Stones, and of course the Holy Grail, and these make for far more convincing gizmo’s, in large measure because their very existence is a mystery, which the Antikythera mechanism just isn’t.
In summary…
As I said at the start of this review, I enjoyed this film, and if you haven’t seen it, then I’d say its worth a watch. But its one to rent rather than buy, because there are too many issues with this film to make it something that you might want to view time and again, unlike the first two in the series.
The clear highlight for me, is the novelty of the de-aged computer generated Indiana Jones at the start of the film.
Yes, there’s a bit too much action, and not enough of the quiet or comedic moments for my taste. But the action still rolls along at a good pace, so while its not great, it does still feel like a real Indiana Jones film.