Steven Spielberg
Indiana Jones e il Regno del Teschio di Cristallo

Knock Knock - "Who is it?" "IT'S ROCKY!" - "Nooo, I can't believe it! It's been so long! I hadn't heard from you since the 'I'll break you in half' days, or something like that, you have a face that reminds me of Alba Parietti, how the hell did you end up like this, brother!" - Knock Knock - "Sorry Rocky, there was another knock, who is it???" - "IT'S JONH RAMBO" - "Noooooo impossible! But weren't you the same person? And what the hell are you doing here? Have you had enough of shooting communists with a bazooka?" - Knock Knock Knock - "Holy Christ, and now who the hell is it? All we need is John McClane from Die Hard, who the hell is it???" - "IT'S JOHN MCCLANE FROM DIE HARD" - "Nooooooooooo Bruce Willis with the Stallone brothers, we just need Terminator, have you seen him, I bet you brought that other steroid freak with you, oh no.. impossible, he's finishing California! Who's missing? Who the hell is missing?" - KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK - "who the hell could it be now! There's Rambo and Rocky, there's McClane, but who the hell is it????" - "IT'S INDIANA JONES" - "NO!! That's enough! You've broken the hell out of me! You came knocking on my door knowing I was a former fan of yours, you don't have a dime left, you've gambled it all away on hookers, facelifts, and viagra! And now you're bringing back your damn characters with arteriosclerosis to get a movie ticket from me! Die all of you! ALL OF YOU OUT!! OUT OF MY WAY!!!!!!! .... Indiana Jones! Not you! You stay here! You're the only one who, with that hat and whip, still manages to convince me, the others... to hell with them. And now Dr. Jones, let's see what you can do, Action.. rolling!

In Hollywood, a bad plague has broken out, bringing back these '80s icons to try to save cinema from death! Commercial operations that exploit the nostalgic vein of fans; The governor of California returned with the third Terminator and when they saw that the fans took the bait, they opened up the trunk of old movies, the majors called all the 80s wrecks and gathered them for a reunion to make money off us fools who get so moved seeing them return to acting on a wheelchair, dubbed by body doubles even when they bend down to tie a shoe, yet we all went to the cinema..., I watched them all again, because in the end.. damn curiosity always wins! The only one I didn't see was the return of Indiana Jones, and it was a mistake, because after watching the DVD I realized that among these grandpa heroes making a comeback, he was the only one who truly made me relive the emotions of youth, from the first to the last scene.

Old, awkward, shriveled, held up with reinforced concrete, and yet.. with that whip and leather jacket.. it gives the same effect as 20 years ago! I never expected to see him at 98 years on screen and feel like only 15 days have passed since the last chapter! There's nothing to do, Spielberg is skilled! He knows his craft, although sometimes he surprises me with chilling lines like "Independence Day is a great film" which makes me wonder if he really knows cinema! Well.. the fact remains that when he takes the director's chair he knows what he's doing, but here the game is too easy, taking the same ingredients from two decades ago, the same recipe, the same warmed-over gruel and offering it back to us just as it is, without adding "too many" computer effects and ultra-modern cinematography, this new chapter is a sequel identical to the style of the previous ones, same cinematography, same clothes, same actors, same adventures in cursed times, and the same crusades between father and son, identical! Same old story... yet... it works! There's nothing to do, despite some excessive absurdities, the film works! And the strong point is precisely in maintaining the trademark. A quality product visible right from the opening credits, which shows a squirrel popping up in front of the camera as if it were a Disney movie and then this car chase in the countryside with camera movements and photography worthy of the best Spielberg, oh yes.. Indiana Jones is truly back, and unlike his colleagues, he doesn't want to play on the character's aging, the fact that he's old now and can't do those things anymore, let the softening of the audience be for Stallone, here Spielberg enjoys pressing the action pedal not taking the protagonist's age seriously at all, it doesn't matter that Jones has become a retirement hero, we came to see this movie to get excited like in the past, and since it's fiction... for the love of god make him fly on that whip again!

And that's how the clever director decided; indeed, incredibly entertaining and well-shot are the sequences where the 150-year-old Harrison Ford performs his stunts at the edge of possible, like a sort of Jackie Chan of the golden days! He balances on wooden pylons, jumps from car to car, falls from three waterfalls, one higher than the other, coming back to the surface each time with his hat still on! But yes! Yes! This is what we want! We want to go to the cinema to see unreal things! Indiana Jones is an adventure and entertainment film rich with Steven Spielberg's fairy tale magic, and so this last episode unfolds, without compromise. The screenplay is original for an Indiana Jones film, indeed compared to the other episodes a truly unprecedented paranormal element in this genre of film is introduced, aliens! And Spielberg knows something about that. Mixing science fiction with fantasy and adventure was a happy choice which I really appreciated.

The only flaws of the film, in my opinion, are the ending, too much like "Independence Day" (which I don't understand why the hell Spielberg likes it) and the insertion of Indiana Jones' son who with that face looks like a Teen Movie! For the rest.. two hours to relax and let oneself go from fantasy just like old times. If you say to a movie like this "Noo too exaggerated" then it's not for you, it's like saying "Noo too dramatic" while watching TITANIC! Everything we expected from Jones was served to us. No more, no less. But in the end, it's still a commercial operation. A damn trap for nostalgics.

This time, however, I fell for it willingly.