In 1957 Nevada, KGB agent Irina (Blanchett) and her thugs force archaeologist Indiana Jones (Ford) to find a crate in Hangar 51. But Indy doesn't just do as he's told, and before long he's teamed up with the cocky young Mutt (LaBeouf) on a trip to South America to rescue and old friend (Hurt) and Mutt's mother, who turns out to be Indy's old flame Marion (Allen). But the KGB is already there, as is Indy's traitorous friend Mac (Winstone), and it's a race to a lost city in the Amazon, home to a rather odd-shaped crystal skull.

While the first three films were set in the 1930s, this story is fully steeped in the 1950s, touching on the atom bomb, aliens, and the Cold War, which adds an low-key War on Terror parallel. Along the way, Spielberg makes several nods to the original trilogy, with snappy dialog and superb sight gags, stirred in with a sense of mortality due to Indy's advanced age.

Fortunately, Ford plays it at his actual age, which makes it relatively believable (assuming he's a fit, 65-year-old stuntman), and his interaction with Allen is amusing. LaBeouf has a terrific presence, with his James Dean swagger, flick-knife and coif. Winstone clearly relishes his role as the slippery sidekick. And Blanchett camps it up hilariously as the yearning apparatchik in a skin-tight Soviet-issue uniform, complete with gleaming sword.

Spielberg knows his way around an action sequence and, although there's never enough peril to get us on the edge of our seats, each set piece is thrillingly staged, with constant wit and a fantastically huge scale (although the over-use of CGI weakens everything it touches). The film is a bundle of entertaining chases, chaotic battles and extremely narrow escapes, all tinged with the pure love of cinema.

So we can forgive it for being completely ridiculous. We can ignore that they're clearing the rainforest one moment, then racing through it on a remarkably smooth highway the next. We can accept the appearance of the cast of Apocalypto in the near-apocalyptic finale. Because along the way we get so much sheer movie fun that we can't help but enjoy being back in Indy's world.

themes, violence

20.May.08