26/05/2008 INDIANA JONES & THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL  It’s 27 years now since Indiana Jones first started stirring ghosts of the past in search of hidden treasure in Raiders of the Lost Ark and at 65 Harrison Ford may be a little old for violent archaeological adventures, but while there’s money to be made there’ll be juice in the tank and there’s life in the old dog yet. Not least at the box office, which has been doing triple somersaults since news that Harrison was again donning trademark fedora, bullwhip, leather jacket, map, spade, neat one-liners in readiness for further encounters with buried evil, rolling boulders and vicious baddies.
This time Indy’s nemesis is a Russian and – a bonus for all babeluvers – comes in the shapely form of Cate Blanchett, seductively playing top Soviet army honcho Irina Spalko. It’s a great name but it’s impossible to dislike Cate Blanchett in any role, which is a bit of a drawback when she’s playing a character we are clearly intended to despise as she leads our hero to the lost city of Akakor in a forest in Peru. Cate does look sizzling sexy, though, if not quite as dangerous to know as she should – and with her short cropped hair she looks a lot hotter as Irina Spalko than she does as either Queen Elizabeth 1 or Bob Dylan, both of whom she’s been playing recently.
You worry less what damage Irina might do to Indy than the greater likelihood of him putting his back out swinging through the air on a rope and landing in the back of a moving truck – though that’s obviously compulsory, this being an Indiana Jones movie and all. Still, he’s got his old flame Marion Ravenwood (played by Karen Allen, who still looks pretty saucy herself for someone in her fifties). It’s only 10 years ago since People magazine voted Harrison Ford the sexiest man alive and while my own particular penchant has always been for the, ahem, more virile younger specimen, I must admit he’s in good nick. And there’s added fun with Ray Winstone playing his sidekick Mac in this adventure. I mean, everyone loves Ray Winstone, don’t they? The archetypal cockney sparrer lovable rogue ruffian with a heart of gold feller. As the scrapes come thick and fast you know Harrison’s lumbago will be kept at bay by Winstone’s iron man constitution and ready wit, while Shia LaBeouf (who’s much more my idea of a supper-cum-breakfast companion if you get my drift, babeluvers) is also on hand to supply a younger form of athleticism when the action hots up, though they could have given him a sexier name than Mutt.
The storyline doesn’t stand up to much scrutiny but then you don’t go to an Indiana Jones movie anticipating realism do you? It’s all about the adventure of the journey and in some senses the dafter the better, with the visual jokes and the occasional comic script readily acknowledging as much. This tale catches up with Indy in the nineteen fifties as professor at a college where the dean is under pressure to fire him for misdemeanours involving Soviet agents at the height of the Cold War. Indie shuffles in shame out of town, but bumps into Shia LaBoeuf’s rebellious young Mutt, who persuades him to accompany him to Peru on a search for the crystal skull of Akakor, a legendary long-lost treasure reputed to have all manner of mystical powers. And off they trot to Peru to find it. Only problem is the Soviets – led by Cate Blanchett’s Irina – have the same idea. Cue spectacular clashes on a major scale as Indy’s ragamuffin mob collide with Irina’s crack squad of Russians and director Steven Spielberg weaves his magic spell with a series of gasp-inducing stunts and dramatic duels.
I’d best not spoil the fun and tell you what happens though it’s tempting, babeluvers, it really is. It’s nonsense, of course, but it’s superior nonsense and you emerge from the screening feeling totally exhausted. But in a good way. Like you’ve had a furious night of elicit, passionate rumpy pumpy with your best friend’s lover. Or maybe in your case, Cate Blanchett.
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