Daniel Cann

Jones returns to Marshall College where he works as a professor and is offered a leave of absence while an FBI investigation prompted by Mac’s links to Communists cools down. At the train station Jones is about to board a train when he meets an earnest young man looking like Brando in ‘The Wild One,’ Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf) who has an important message to pass on to him. They sit down at a diner where Mutt explains that Jones’ old colleague Harold Oxley (John Hurt) has disappeared while searching for a crystal skull in Peru. Before they get any further there is yet another fight and chase (this film likes scuffles and chases) and both men are on Mutts’ motorbike racing through the college towns streets. They give their pursuers the slip and before you know it we are following Jones and Mutt on one of those familiar travelogues which occurred in the previous films where a red line passes through a map to show our heroes progress.

The adventure picks up in Peru and the search for Oxley is on. The rest of the film is a series of set pieces and cliffhangers with Jones meeting his ex Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) and of course being united with Oxley who has appeared to have lost his mind. Spalko and her cohorts are back in the fray as is the slippery Mac who can’t stop himself from changing sides, he becomes a double agent, a triple agent, then a quadruple agent until we no longer care any more. We learn that Spalko wants the crystal skulls so she can control the Western world; only Jones and his allies stand in her way.

There are yes again, more chases and comic mishaps in the jungle, which is fine entertaining fare and what we come to expect from an Indiana Jones film. The action is up to scratch even when nothing else seems to be. The sad thing is that there are so many characters that no one really manages to establish themselves. There is a subplot involving Marion, Mutt and Indy that is so obvious they needn’t have bothered. Its all a little bloated and you do wonder if it might have succeeded more if it was more scaled down like the earlier films.

The climax to the film is a bit of a let down, I suppose all entries so far in the series have had elements of the supernatural and sci fi but this is taking things a little too far. Maybe I am suffering from unrealistic expectations, but the film took so long in development to ‘find the right screenplay’ so my expectations were high, well, if this is the best they could come up with after all these years then maybe they should not have bothered. The sentimentalist in me loved seeing Indy back in action and enjoyed the stunts but the overall feeling on leaving the cinema was a hollow one. Families I’m sure will enjoy it and it will be a hit no matter what critics think, but this is a pretty weak effort after such a big build up.

VIEW MOVIE TRAILER BELOW