Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

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Spielberg pushes all the right buttons, but there's something about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull that's second hand. Set 19 years after finding the Holy Grail, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull opens in the Nevada desert in 1957, where a motorcade of Russian agents, disguised as the US army, approach a warehouse on a secret airfield. In the boot of a trunk is Indiana Jones (Ford), whom the Russians need to find a mysterious relic hidden in the jungle of boxes. A daring escape later, and Indy finds himself in a nuclear testing ground. Another daring escape later and Indy, coupled now with petulant greaser Mutt (LaBeouf dressed like Marlon Brando in The Wild One), sets off for South America in search of a Crystal Skull and return it to the lost city of Alkator in the Amazon. Why? It's not really clear on first viewing, but what does that matter? Indy was always about quips, whips and stunts, right? Yes and no. In Raiders of The Lost Ark and The Last Crusade, the plot was very much to the fore; we never lost sight that Indy was chasing down the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail respectively, but Crystal Skull's plot, like Temple of Doom's, come a distant second to the action sequences. With a host of National Treasure-influenced riddles and puzzles, usually solved while running, punching someone or hanging off the back of a truck, the plot gets a little murky, elbowed out of the way in favour of daring stunts - and, thankfully, there's plenty of them to sink your teeth into. So how does it hold up? Crystal Skull is fun, but it isn't as good as the original trilogy and there are a few reasons for that. First of all, everything feels diluted; it's a different time and the '80s action movie slant that Spielberg tries ever so hard to inject into his movie is forced. The over reliance on CGI don't help matters either. The bad guys, always men, are replaced by Blanchett's manic-eyed Russian Irana Spalko; she's a lot better than Last Crusade's stiff, business-like Donovan, but lacks the dark menace of Temple's Mola Ram and the slimy charisma of Raiders's Belloq. Everything about her character is tongue-in-cheek, but Blancett seems unaware of this. Ford seems to be going through the motions; it's not that he's old - Indy is older and that's easy to get on board with - but new Indy has lost something 'our' Indy had. Maybe it's that he's never cool here. Not once. Although he's up on screen (and it's great to see him) and he's doing his thing, Ford makes you miss Indiana Jones; like it's a different actor doing his best to be Harrison Ford in Indiana Jones - maybe the title could have been Indiana Jones's Cousin and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It's nice to see Raiders's leading lady Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) return as Mutt's mother, but once the reunion is over, she too has lost that feistiness and has little to do than run with the pack. LeBeouf, obviously groomed to take over the fedora and whip for future instalments, is perfectly fine but he never nails a young Indy like River Phoenix did in Last Crusade. When the dust settles and the hype vanishes, fans will admit they like it but I doubt they'll love it.