Word: mutt
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...Nevada in 1957, a time of rock 'n' roll (Elvis' Hound Dog is on the sound track), greasy-haired juvenile delinquents (including the main new character, Shia LaBeouf's Mutt Williams), commie-phobia (and why not? The Soviets have just penetrated a U.S. military base), fear of the Bomb (hmm, what's that mushroom cloud on the horizon?) and mass sightings of UFOS (coming soon to an archaeological dig near...
...movie intended as a class reunion, Indy has to bring a wife-equivalent: his gal pal from Raiders, Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen, still brandishing that mile-wide smile). Her son Mutt is a young Indy manqué; he has discipline issues, but you can be sure he'll work them out, since he's the designated hero of whatever further sequels Lucas has in mind. LaBeouf, an intelligent actor without an ounce of charisma, will be hard put to replace the original, iconic Indy. Ford looks just fine, his chest tanned to a rich, Corinthian leather; he is still lithe...
...style in 1957. As for Indy's bullwhip, it's still faster and deadlier than a bad guy's gun. In the opening Area 51 scene, he uses it to disarm about a quillion Russkies, and to swing in Errol Flynn style from one warehoused beam to another. (Mutt will later show the same swinging derring-do on Peruvian jungle vines.) As for the snakes, there's just one, but indy is readier to die in quicksand than to use it as a lifeline. The nifty new predators are South American red ants, which Spielberg and Lucas may have remembered...
...Indy's father (Sean Connery) and learned that Indy's real name was Henry Jones, Jr. Indeed, "Junior" was Dad's apparently derogatory form of address for his son. That gag is repeated here, since - as everyone who's paid the slightest attention to pre-release scuttlebutt knows - Mutt is Indy's son by Marion. (Why is he called Mutt? Presumably because, as we learned at the end of The Last Crusade, Indiana was the name of the Jones family dog; Mutt's just extending the breed.) He enters on a motorcycle, in the leather-jacket regalia Marlon Brando sported...
...Skull. (And, truth to tell, there was more applause here at the beginning of the screening than at the end.) But they'd be hard-pressed to inhabit the sleek, satisfying adventure that three septuagenarians and their pals dreamed up here. There's a moment in the film where Mutt sees Indy negotiate some really cool bit of action, and the kid can't help mouth a "Wow." That's the right response to this inevitable summer blockbuster. Lucas, Spielberg and Ford ain't the Over the Hill Gang...