New Indy is Rockwell-esqu

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Rated PG-13

(Three stars)

By Bruce Bulloch

Every artist has his god. And for Steven Spielberg it may be Norman Rockwell.

Rockwell was a maestro of the American icon. There was no activity of American life, no matter how mundane, that Rockwell could not rub and buff until it glowed with a sentimentality that made it feel like an essential part of our American identity.

It is this Lemon Pledge assault on reality that inspires Spielberg's filmmaking. Even after the visceral carnage of the opening scene of "Saving Private Ryan," Spielberg retreated to a series of images that could have been storyboarded by Rockwell himself-a government typing pool, General Marshall's office, and a farm wife at her kitchen sink-to create the emotional touchstone for his soldiers' odyssey.

"Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull" propels Indie ahead in time to the 1950's and gives Spielberg a new palette of cultural iconography to play with. Spielberg has a lot of fun bringing his affectionate vision of the 1950's to the screen and it breathes new life into this fourth installment of the "Indiana Jones" franchise.

It does something else for the film as well. Spielberg's deft evocation of men in grey-flannel suits, classic Harleys, and soda fountains cushions the blow of one piece of reality that Spielberg can't put into soft focus: Indie has grown old.

As the film opens, Jones is in the clutches of a group of Russian spies. They want him to help locate a crystal skull with mysterious powers stored in the vast government warehouse (now conveniently located on a nuclear test range) that was featured so famously in the closing scene of "Raiders of the Lost Ark."

Jones escapes though not gracefully. Through a dizzying blend of bullwhip virtuosity and pratfalls, Indie finds himself on the run. Spielberg has lost none of his talent for playing action sequences as physical comedy-goosing our adrenal glands and funny bone at the same time. It leads to what may be the best scene in the movie.

Indie stumbles upon a mockup of a suburban housing tract that's about to be obliterated in a nuclear test blast. Spielberg has every period detail in place from the Formica-topped dining-room table to "Howdy Doody" playing on the TV. It creates a haunting, nostalgic moment that ends with Jones taking a harrowing and hilarious ride in a smoking refrigerator.

Part of the fun of Indie-in fact, part of his brand-has always been his ability to bounce. The "Indiana Jones" storylines knock Jones around with casual abandon. There is an almost cartoon-like magic in the way he "takes a licking and keeps on ticking." It also animates the dialogue, serving as a springboard for his best one-liners.

But gravity has taken hold of this middle-aged Indie and a lot of the bounce is gone. It throws Harrison Ford off his game, deflating the energy of the physical comedy. It affects the dialogue as well. Ford seems less at home in this installment of the "Indiana Jones" franchise and his comic timing is cranky and flat.

Fortunately Spielberg has chosen as his Russian nemesis the incomparable Cate Blanchett. He Decks Blanchett out in a sexy grey Soviet jumpsuit with a stylish CCCP logo, placed artfully on its back-serving notice Spielberg intends to use the Cold War the way Abercrombie & Fitch uses flannel: as a fashion accessory. It's a touch that Norman Rockwell would love.

Blanchett is here to have some fun and becomes the engine that drives the film.

Jones joins forces with a young motorcycle tough (Shia LaBeouf as a perfectly rendered Marlon Brando replica and the film's uneasy attempt to recapture the youthful vigor of an earlier Indiana Jones). Everyone heads to the jungles of South America in an extended tug-of-war over the crystal skull.

Once in the jungle, the film is on familiar ground and becomes an entertaining reshuffling of the Indie franchise's bag of tricks. We are treated to booby-trapped ruins, gun battles on trucks racing perilously along cliff edges, and snake jokes. We've seen it all before and yet it's as much fun as if we're experiencing it for the first time.

There is a video-game quality to the "Indiana Jones" storylines. Each installment is less of a story unto itself than another game level with variations on the same extended action sequences. But it works, so who can complain?

The film teases us with a possible hand off of the Indie torch to a new generation. In a final scene Shia LaBeouf reaches down to pick up Indie's hat but Ford snatches it back at the last minute. In "The Crystal Skull," it seems, the Indiana Jones franchise is working through a midlife crisis.

Bruce Bulloch may be reached at wseditor@robinsonnews.com.