Indiana Jones Wins Us Over No Matter What

By Katey Rich

It's hard, if not downright impossible, to kill a tentpole summer movie with bad reviews. Lord knows we film critics have tried. But still when it comes to some of the biggest names of summer, the studios treat critics like kryptonite, keeping us at bay until the last possible moment and then practically begging us to be nice.

That instinct was prominently on display when Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull debuted at Cannes on Sunday. The screening was a sign of bravado on the part of Paramount-- Look! We don't fear the French!-- but an undertone of fear ran through the planning stages. Remembering how The Da Vinci Code was practically booed out of the country two years ago, studio handlers limited press access to the movie's key players and sent George Lucas out weeks ago to lower expectations. Remember that he told Entertainment Weekly "A lot of the critics forget that they didn't like the first three, and so they get off on this one, too � or it's not the Second Coming."

So half the critics went into Sunday's press screenings, both at Cannes and at home, expecting to hate it. And half resolutely hoped that it would be at least as good as The Last Crusade. The result was curious. Though reports from the scene in Cannes said that reaction was mixed, the Rotten Tomatoes score stayed at a positive 80%. But looking at the reviews, there's a definite forced enthusiasm. Our Kevin Lally called it "the most Spielbergian of the series, with all the assets and deficits that implies," while David Poland of Movie City News wrote the cryptic "You can feel the Indy magic at various moments through this film. However�"

See what they did there? You simply can't excorciate Indiana Jones. There are people who stick up for Temple of Doom, even though it has to be one of the most simultaneously racist and sexist movies of the 80s. And for all our jokes, most of us went willingly along with the idea of a 65-year-old action hero, because in some ways, Harrison Ford is simply untouchable. For all our horrific memories of The Phantom Menace, it maintains an overall positive rating on Rotten Tomatoes. When something is so beloved for so long, you're willing to let it let you down a little, so long as it gives you at least a fraction of what you came for. Even if Jar Jar Binks is part of the package.

Of course Indiana Jones wasn't going to get booed at Cannes. That would be the equivalent of the critics tracking down their 12-year-old selves and kicking them in the shins, insisting that the movie hero they love is just an old guy in a silly hat. Instead the critics have twisted themselves into pretzels finding ways to praise a movie that, were it just any other action-adventure epic (think The Mummy), would probably have barely made an impression on them. Like I said, critics can't kill public enthusiasm for a movie, but in this case, they can't even kill the enthusiasm in themselves. In some part of their core, the rousing march of a theme song inspires the movie love that made them get that job to begin with.

This is all projection-- I haven't seen the movie yet, insisting upon going with my friends on opening night, along with the other fools who will ignore mixed reviews and show up in droves. And oh, will we ever show up. These half-hearted, almost apologetically tepid reviews tell me more than any pan or rave ever could. The message is clear: Resistance is futile. Crystal Skull is your new master now. And you're going to love it.

I sure plan to.