Fourth Time's No Charm

Last night, the Disney Channel was showing the film Holes. Aimed at kids, it combines the worst of kid sitcom stylings with a peculiar storyline about a teen rehabilitation camp with kids digging holes to find some treasure, and then an action director in Andrew Davis, most famous for his modern retelling of The Fugitive.

Holes is also famous for being the first film starring Shia LeBeouf, who had for the most part been acting in television. Since then, Shia has been in Bobby, Disturbia, and Transformers, enough, apparently, to make him the new "it" guy.

This isn't the first time the Raiders series has opted to find young talent to augment Harrison Ford. In particular, in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, River Phoenix, looking every much River Phoenix, and not a whit like Harrison Ford, plays young Indiana Jones, in a flashback scene where he first learns to yield a bullwhip.

Early reviews suggested that the latest installment of Indiana Jones, with the lumberous title Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a flop, and while any Spielberg-helmed film is going to have more than its share of clever bits, this almost feels like a favor to Harrison Ford, then a well-thought out plot.

The first Indiana Jones film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, revived a new idea to movies, the swashbuckling hero, except, being post-1970s, Harrison Ford didn't play a traditional swashbuckling hero. He wasn't the manly, full-of-confidence, wooden acting hero of the 30s and 40s. Karen Allen plays the tough-as-nails bartender-slash-daughter of an archaeologist, the kind of role women used to find more common in the pre-women's lib movement than now.

What made the first film successful, other than its vivid scenes of faraway South America and Egypt, there is a certain level of seriousness in that film, in particular, the rather creepy Ark itself and the rival Rene Belloq, who takes a fancy for Marion.

The second film jettisons the independent Marion for the ever-frightened "Willie" Scott played by Kate Capshaw, in the more traditional 40s-style woman (rather than someone like Kate Hepburn). While her character was more slight, the rather dark, claustrophobic scenes in the Thugee headquarters lead to a creepy effect. Among the three films, this is the weakest, and even still, the chase scene inside the railway leaves one gasping for breath.

The third film adds a lot of clever elements that make the story more interesting than the first. This time, unlike the first two films, there is a femme fatale, played by Alison Doody, Dr. Elsa Schneider is beautiful, smart, and ruthless. She is the dark mirror of Indy's characters.

But the real revelation in the third film is casting Sean Connery against type. Rather than play the James-Bond like character, who would be the natural father of Indiana Jones, Connery is a bookish sort. A key scene occurs when his father starts squawking with an umbrella, which causes a bunch of geese to jam up a biplane set on mowing down the intreprid Jones. Even the casual ride in the blimp is fun. And opening up the film with young Indiana Jones as a color that the previous films didn't get to.

The fourth film, coming nearly 20 years after the previous one, decides to jettison the Nazis. After all, Harrison Ford is also almost 20 years older too, and to keep setting the film during the 40s is to deny that Ford is not as young as he used to be (even though he's kept in remarkably good shape).

This time, the Communists replace the Nazis, and it's about the Red scare in the 50s. This too has some issues, because it's only dealt with rather lightly (mostly in early scenes), and then they become the generic bad guys. Cate Blanchett is vaguely unrecognizable as the vamped up Irina Spalko, reminiscent of a dominatrix more than anything else.

Part of the story involves the titular crystal skull and another archaeologist played by a bumbling John Hurt who stumbles on its secrets. Ray Winstone who had a good turn as Mr. French in The Departed plays Mac whose obsession with gold has kept him in the treasure hunting business all these years.

The problem with the fourth film is trying to figure out what the heck to do with Mutt. Since it's set in the 50s, a favorite era for George Lucas, Lucas gets to show off cars from the era, and Mutt as prototypical greaser. The problem is how to get Mutt and Indiana to have reasonable dialog with one another. Mutt's just not the same character as Prof. Henry Jones as played by Sean Connery, who at the very least, often coasts with his considerable charm.

Spielberg has a lot of clever bits in the film, from hinting at Area 51 and Roswell, to the clever devices shown throughout the film, to an echo of his early days with E.T. and Close Encounters. Yet, the whole story seems far less engaging than any of the previous outings, where some of the seriousness of the first films have been replaced by bubble-gum shenanigans. And, yeah, the CG effects, they could be better!

CG still has work to go. Even if models and puppets are also fake, there is more realism because they are made by physical objects. At times, if the story is good, like Lord of the Rings we can forgive the less than realistic appearances of castles and monsters because we are engaged in the story.

Is it awful? No. But over the years, we've expected a lot more from this very successful franchise.