Ash's Official Indy 4 Review

I am a fan of the Indiana Jones movies. No doubt about it, and I can watch them repeatedly, never feeling that urge to critique or evaluate them as movies. They are movies, but they always feel like a little something else too, don't they. That is what separates them from the Die Hards, the Lethal Weapons, the Terminators. They are adventure yarns, episodic tales that feel as though they are equally at home streaming from a radio, bookended by Little Orphan Annie and Buck Rogers as they are glowing pieces of celluloid sandwiched between a myriad of Matrix rip-offs and self important oscar-worthy dramas. If my disdain for a lot of current Hollywood fodder is apparent, well, let me just say that catering to the 12-21 crowd is slowly killing the creativity is this country, Now let me take a moment to clarify myself. The American media engine's IDEA of what the 12-21 crowd wants is killing the creativity in this country. Sadly, they are so persuasive they are often able to tell this demographic what they want, and just as much the sin as my Lexus driving neighbors here in suburban America, they fall prey to believing it.
Hey, wasn't this supposed to be a movie review? I'm getting around to that I assure you. I' m laying a little foundation because I believe the vision of Indiana Jones deserves it. I believe the belief in a hero in a hero-less age deserves it. Why should Indiana Jones be any different than any other action hero. Plain and simple: Righteous Indignity. Indiana Jones is a hero because heroes have a little something called righteous indignity. Righteous indignity has been given a bad rap for a long time due to the people who throw the therm around: the self professed righteous who are usually anything but. For all the "kick-assery" that the character of Jones represents, Indiana Jones is a professor, a pacifist and scholar in a world that desecrates the idea of inherited knowledge, forcing the hero to exercise righteous indignity. So with that being said does Indiana Jones belong in 2008? Can the world understand the concept of a hero, or just of vengeance, often blurring the lines between the two? This is where Indiana Jones has always worked in my opinion. The series manages to present us with an era where the idea of heroes, while still not necessarily understood through the jaded eyes of the children of a new millenium, can be accepted without the usual pinch of cynicism. Indiana Jones works, because like the characters own displays of righteous indignity, it is blissfully unaware of it's nostalgia as tact, using it instead to create a world that makes it a little easier to suspend disbelief.

That being said Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is escapism. A serial retrieved from the golden era of radio much like its predecessors, and it works. As much as it is self referential, you never feel a sense of self awareness here. That is a good thing. It's a good thing when the cool kid doesn't know he's cool. He's easy to still admire and yet still approachable. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is VERY easy to admire. Spielberg never makes any excuse for Indiana Jones at 65, letting the character dismiss reinvention and instead reestablish himself as a formidable action hero; one with a conscious and purpose that makes most modern day heroes look amateurish, despite their guns and computer saavy. More so, Kingdom is still approachable despite obvious homages to the earlier films. Characters like Marcus Brody and Indy's father are missed, but they're never written off. Instead, we see the passage of time without letting those losses become a burdening undercurrent, letting them reinforce the character's reintroduction instead. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull proves that even when a hero can't escape time, he can still age gracefully.

Ash