"Return" - Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Watching Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was a family outing - all 4 of us, popcorn, drinks ..... and one member sleeping through practically the whole film.

The film employs the familiar but always fresh chases, stunts, mystical symbols, ancient civilizations and jokes about Jones's fear of snakes. There are shades of Erich Von Daniken, whose books (led by "Chariots of the Gods") were extremely popular in the 70s. The idea of Aliens being behind major earthling religions was more fun to contemplate than the end of the gold standard, or the possible communist takeover of Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.


Irina Spalko makes a wonderful villan(ess). Cate Blanchett is a far better baddie than she is a Fairy Queen (think Galadriel, LOTR). As Irina, she projects this cool, aloof, confident arrogance that makes her destruction that much more satisfying.

Indiana Jones: Careful, you may get exactly what you wish for.

Irina Spalko: I usually do.

Demanding knowledge from the Aliens, she gets bombarded by more than her being could contain. Makes you think back to the threat about how eating of the fruit from the tree of knowledge would bring about hardship and pain. (Genesis).

By same token, recall the end of the Nazi Baddies in Raiders of the Lost Ark - to save them both, Indy tells Marion "don't look". Which recalls Lot's wife turning back to look on the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and turning into a pillar of salt as a result.

There are a few throwbacks that are fun to look out for:

• Mutt's look is a throw back to Lucas' early success - American Graffiti
• The design of the Alien is a throw back to Spielberg's aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind
• Indy says "I have a bad feeling about this", which brings you back to his Han Solo Character in Star Wars, where these words are uttered by Luke Skywalker.

There are probably many more - I have to watch the film a few more times to catch them.

When one thinks of the word "throwback", one also thinks of the word "return".

"Return" is used a lot in the film.

• The Alien commands Harold Oxley to "return" the crystal skull to the spaceship.
• There is the Return to Peru, which is where the first Indy film opens.
• There is the Return of Marion.
• There is the Return of the Ark - you see a part of it through a broken off section of a wooden crate during Indy's attempts to escape Spalko's men in the Area 51 warehouse.

Colonel Spalko is the single best thing about the film.

Indiana Jones: You're not from around here, are you?

Irina Spalko: Where is it you imagine I am from... Doctor Jones.

Indiana Jones: Well the way you're sinkin your teeth into those v-ouble-u's, I should think Eastern Ukraine.

She brings to mind other memorable Russian women villans/spies:

• Barbara Bach's character in The Spy Who Loved Me, Anya Amasova. (Barbara Bach's hunsband is Ringo Starr)
• Rosa Klebb in From Russia with Love
• Natasha Ramanoff - the Black Widow - created by Stan Lee, and who was so memorable in the early Frank Miller run on Daredevil
• Xenia Sergeyevna Onatopp - in Goldeneye - played by Famke Janssen, (later Jean Grey in X-Men). Now this was a funny woman - she got sexually aroused when killing men.

Since the start of the Indiana Jones franchise, Lucas and Spielberg have tapped into ancient legends, evil empires, 1940s machines (trucks, planes and tanks), and swashbuckling hero movies of old. It's been a recipe that worked with fans like me - filled with ingredients of the diet of heroic fantasy I stuffed myself with in the 60s and 70s. It's a taste of nostalgia - one that leaves one hungry for more. Although sad that this is probably the last Harrison Ford/Indiana Jones film, I'm glad at how well the series has ended. Closing the loop, and branching out a fork for something new, perhaps featuring Mutt Williams in the leading role.

Mutt Williams: I don't understand. Why the legend about the city of gold?

Indiana Jones:: Well, the word for 'gold' translates as 'treasure.' But their treasure wasn't gold, it was knowledge. Knowledge was their treasure.

Treasure. Knowledge. Good and Evil. Banishment from the garden of paradise. The human condition. Prisoners of ideas and beliefs. Look to the skies.