Raiding The Lost Verve
Monday, November 10th, 2008
I listened to James Taylor’s new album, called “Covers,” not long before I watched Steven Spielberg’s “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” I came to the same conclusion about both of these regrettable projects: What a shame that these two vastly talented men have been spinning their wheels in the same lucrative rut for so long.
Mr. Taylor’s album is, as the title states, a collection of other people’s hits, redone in his mellow, laid-back style. With the exception of “Wichita Lineman,” none of the songs are appreciable improvements over the originals. The overriding impression listening to it is that it promises high yield in a commercial sense while posing a very low risk to a star who has been much too firmly fixed at the same point on the horizon for far too long.
There is always the impression that the mere obviousness of its huge budget will atone for a multiplicity of other deficiencies.
Harrison Ford, charming half-smile intact, is reprising a character last seen on screens nearly 20 years ago. Mr. Ford tries hard not to seem as embarrassed by the knuckleheaded proceedings as Pierce Brosnan did in “Mamma Mia!” He, generally, succeeds on chutzpah alone. And, if the older Indy sports a few more facial lines and a slightly thicker waistline, he will always be up to the hair-raising acrobatics as long as there are testosterone rich stuntmen available.
The more familiar Indiana Jones-ish character in “Crystal Skull” is Mutt Williams, an attitudinal young man whose paternal origin will come as no surprise to anyone who has seen “The Empire Strikes Back.” Mutt is played by Shia LaBeouf, actor and occasional bad boy, whose much-heralded great future in Hollywood is not any more apparent here than it was in the god-awful “Transformers.”
The real casualty of “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” is Spielberg himself. The dazzling expectations occasioned by “Duel,” and “Jaws” were ultimately undone by “E.T.,” “Raiders,” and “Jurassic Park.” Their phenomenal successes beckoned, like a veiled temptress, to the director to “come away with me.”
The fact that the creature at the climax of “Crystal Skull” was reminiscent of the alien in “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” was probably calculated. I was only reminded of the promise abandoned.
Tags: acrobatics, chutzpah, commercial sense, crystal skull, facial lines, half smile, indiana jones, indy sports, james taylor, mr taylor, mutt, paternal origin, pierce brosnan, redone, shia labeouf, spinning their wheels, steven spielberg, talented men, wichita lineman