The original Indiana Jones venture was inspired by Lucas and Spielberg’s love for 1930s serials, but you’d be hard pressed to find much inspiration in their latest collaboration. There’s plenty of perspiration, of course, what with the wall-to-wall chases — many tricked out with obvious computer-generated effects — that careen one into another like colliding big rigs. As expected, the high leaps and long jumps look impressive, even if it’s something of a bummer when one of the best directors working today (Spielberg) doesn’t seem to be working as hard as the stunt crew. Initially, I thought he was bored with the material (he wouldn’t be alone), but now I think he’s just grown out of this kind of sticky kids’ stuff.
Creative ennui certainly might explain why he spends so much time riffing both on his own greatest hits — Indy and company have an encounter of a close, insipid kind — and on other movies. Some of these allusions amuse (a sea of red ants parting a la The Ten Commandments) while others are just painful (LaBeouf done up to resemble Marlon Brando in The Wild One). It’s odd to see Spielberg recycling plot points already chewed through by Roland Emmerich in Stargate, though Indy’s brief encounter with some ferociously feathered Indians who look right out of Mel Gibson’s Apocalypto was a tantalizingly sweet pip, a sequel in waiting (“Indiana Jones Meets Mad Max”) or maybe just a YouTube mash-up.
RSS