Indiana Jones and the Who Gives A Fuck Anymore

Recently I happened to catch the latest installment of the Indiana Jones franchise on TV. As with most Hollywood productions these days, I flat out ignored the film when it came out. But now, after having seen it, I must admit it was not as horrible as I expected. Allow me to elaborate.

It is common knowledge that CGI is here to stay, and that more often than not it is grossly abused. “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” is no exception. Sure, previous Indy movies have been generous with ridiculous plot devices, but the latest sequel takes “jumping the shark” (or rather, “flying the fridge”) to a whole new level. So it is that we see Indy’s son engaged in an extended swordfight jumping between to jeeps speeding through a curiously flat and strangely accessible Amazonian jungle. More worryingly, at the offset the viewer is forced to put up with anthropomorphic gophers overlooking the Indy versus KGB showdown. All of this is, for all traits and purposes, rather imbecilic.

But let us give Spielberg the benefit of doubt for a second. Take, for instance, any preceding Indy film. Weren’t they all ridiculous, over-the-top and frivolous? In “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”, we are forced to buy into the Mayan-extraterrestrial connection. Yet, in “The Last Crusade” we are forced to believe in the existence of Jesus. In “Temple of Doom”, we are affirmed that jumping out of a crashing plane on a life raft can save your life. In “Raiders of the Lost Ark” we are expected to totally not realize that Indy is gratuitously using his revolver in uneven fights only because Harrison Ford is suffering from crippling diarrhea.

“One wrong move and Indy’s dignity gets it!“

Still, I must admit that “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” cranks the dial way up to “bat-shit insane”. In one of the manliest scenes in cinema history, Indy is shown surviving a full on nuke blast simply by hiding in a refrigerator.

Pro’s: integrated MP3 player, shields from nuclear blast. Con’s: Only room for one six-pack.

Now, Spielberg went to great lengths to make his audience believe that something like this could be even remotely possible, and so we see the camera awkwardly zooming in on the fridge door, assuring us that it is led-insulated and thus nuke-safe. As painful as this was to watch, it should be noted that Spielberg wasn’t terribly off course.

Granted, if even a relatively small Hiroshima-scale warhead were to hit your city, it would probably mess up your daily routine to some extent. But still, the perils of nuclear warfare have been somewhat exaggerated over the past six decades. With some luck, it is possible to survive a nuclear explosion even close to the hypocenter of the blast (whether or not you’ll be horribly mutilated is another matter altogether).

It doesn’t kill, just maims (unless when cornered or protecting it’s young).

All in all, survival in the case of a nuclear attack is closely related to several factors, such as the type and yield of the weapon, the peculiarities of the materials used in the fusion/fission process, detonation height, landscape, weather, etc. A ten megaton weapon would probably not fall in the category of “bestest things ever”, but in the case of a “smaller” device, death is not a hundred percent certain (instead, it stands at a carefree ninety-nine percentile).

Imagine that you find yourself well in range of an impotent twenty kiloton blast, perhaps only, say, six hundred meters from the hypocenter. Now suppose you are in a house that is not built of shit. Let’s also throw in a bathtub. With good reflexes and/or acute awareness of the political climate around you, you could dive into the bath and pull it over your head just in time before the blast wreaks all kinds of hell to everything around you. You might just survive. Although, if strange things start growing out of your body, it is perhaps best to see a doctor.

Thus, Indy surviving a 50′s era nuke is not entirely implausible. Unfortunately, Spielberg didn’t really think of a bathtub and instead went with the led-lined fridge – not exactly a survivalist’s shelter-of-choice. What is more baffling is that he had the damn thing hurled through the air a great distance, violently roll down a hill and still somehow managing to inflict zero damage on the visibly rheumatic protagonist.

Actually, I would argue that the gross misunderstanding of physics and the generous use of special effects are not the weakest point of the movie – instead, it is the plot. If you compare it to “The Last Crusade” then it is essentially a replica of the previous film. You get the dysfunctional relationship between Indy and a close family member, a friend-turned-enemy-turned-friend-turned-dead-by-greed, you get the antagonist falling victim to her own inflated ambitions, the intense high speed chase with characters undecided on which vehicle they should remain and even the retarded sidekick who cannot avoid falling prisoner even if he tried.

So what’s the verdict? Despite the self-referential elements, the CGI gophers and “the little nuke that couldn’t”, “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” almost makes for a great pop-corn movie. Almost, because if there’s one thing everybody hates it’s the retarded greaser who can’t go five minutes without blurting out “choo gotta problem wit’ dat?”

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