The theater lights dim. All is quiet in anticipation. The Lucasfilm logo appears on screen followed by the old style Paramount logo. The Paramount mountain fades to a groundhog mound seamlessly resurrecting the Indiana Jones saga. Nineteen years have passed since Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, but Steven Spielberg and George Lucas have dug up this old relic for another go around in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
The film proves to be a great risk for Spielberg and Lucas, but the fourth installment manages to overcome its flaws and in the end delivers an entertaining film just as Raiders of the Lost Ark did all those years ago.
The story picks up in 1957, ironically nineteen years after Indy left the Grail in Turkey, where a gritty and rebellious Dr. Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) has been taken prisoner by a group of Soviets led by the determined Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett). The villainous Reds want Jones to help them find a top secret artifact hidden within a huge warehouse located at Area 51, the same warehouse where the Ark of the Covenant was hidden at the end of Raiders. Jones locates the artifact for the Reds, but later escapes.
After getting back to his normal life teaching at Marshall College, the red scare has reached his campus and Indy is forced into taking a leave of absence. As Indy is about to leave town, he is stopped by a young greaser on a motorcycle named Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf). Mutt tells Indy that an old friend, Harold Oxley (John Hurt), and his mother, Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), are in trouble over a mysterious crystal skull found in Peru. Indy and Mutt go on a long, action-packed adventure into the heart of the Amazon to search for the crystal skull and the mystery it holds in finding the lost city of gold.
This film takes up the same structure as its predecessors: archaeological protagonist (Indiana Jones) gets in way over his head in a pursuit to uncover an artifact that could change the face of this earth with an antagonist (Rene Belloq in Raiders, Mola Ram in Temple, Walter Donovan in Last Crusade, Irina Spalko in Crystal Skull) also in pursuit of the same artifact. The protagonist is accompanied by an accommodating sidekick (Sallah in Raiders, Short Round in Temple, Henry Jones, Sr. in Last Crusade, Mutt Williams in Crystal Skull) and a female acquaintance (Marion Ravenwood in Raiders and Crystal Skull, Willie Scott in Temple, Elsa Schnieder in Last Crusade).
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