Cannes, France - It was the moment that many movie fans around the world had been waiting for when veteran US director Steven Spielberg unveiled Sunday his fourth Indiana Jones blockbuster at the Cannes Film Festival.
US actors Harrison Ford and Calista Flockhart arrive for the gala screening of US director Steven Spielberg's film 'Indiana Jones 4' running out of competition at the 61st edition of the Cannes Film Festival, 18 May 2008, in Cannes, France. EPA/GUILLAUME HORCAJUELO
After the movie had been kept tightly under wraps, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull star Harrison Ford talked emotionally about stepping back into the archaeologist-turned-action hero costume after nearly 20 years since the last film.
'The memories came flooding back,' he said, admitting he had been overcome by 'an unlikely (feeling) of nostalgia.'
Spielberg said it had taken Ford since 1994 to convince him that he should direct another Indie film.
As a sign of the extent to which the Indiana Jones' movies have captured the imagination of generations of filmgoers since the first one appeared in 1981, hundreds of people gathered outside the cinema in Cannes with signs asking for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull tickets.
Instead of Nazis, Indiana Jones' adversaries in the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull are a band of Russian communists led by a dominatrix- style dressed scientist, Irina Spalko, played by Cate Blanchett.
Set in 1957 during the Cold War with the nuclear race fast taking shape, Irina Spalko and Indie are in race to find the source of a mysterious pre-Colombian skull in the jungle of Peru.
Speaking before walking Cannes' famed red carpet, Blanchett said that she would have loved to play Indiana Jones in the film.
'But it was not a bad consolation prize,' she said. 'I got to play an incredible villain with an amazing haircut.'
But after fending off Spalko and her cohorts, Indiana Jones found himself up against a particular tough bunch of characters in the shape of the global press at the Cannes Film Festival and their response to the movie seemed rather mixed.
As a measure of the anticipation ahead of the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull screening, journalists began clapping as the opening credits for the film began rolling across the screen.
There had been talk that at 65, Ford might be too old for the role of adventure hero.
Indeed, the movie is peppered with dialogue about his age.
'We're not as young as we use to be,' Jones says early in the movie.
Those involved in making the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull insisted that the sight of Indiana Jones in his trademark hat and with his bullwhip would set hearts racing again.
But in the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Indie did not appear to have the same swagger as his earlier incarnations.
And in the end, the final response to the movie at the first screening in Cannes appeared to be rather limp with only a modest round of applause for the two-hour 125-million-dollar budget film.
But then, many of the thrills, spills and tight corners in the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull would be familiar to anyone who had seen the previous three Indian Jones' movies.
This might also be a reason why the film did not really generate a sense of fingernail-gnawing tension in the audience at the first screening.
Indiana Jones' sidekick in the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is a Marlon Brando lookalike, Mutt Williams, played by rising Hollywood star Shia Labeouf, who it emerges as the film unfolds is in fact Indie's son and who helps out Dad (Old Man, as Mutt calls him) by taking on some of the action scenes.
Indie and Mutt are also reunited with Mom, Marion Ravenwood, played by Karen Allen who starred alongside Ford in the first Indiana Jones movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, which was released 27 years ago.
Marion is also no slouch when it comes to helping out in seeing off the commie evil ones.
The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull will probably recoup its budget with the sight of the hat and the bullwhip probably enough to get the baby-boomers into the cinemas or at least to buy the DVD when it is finally released.
However, whether it will have the same enduring appeal for younger moviegoers is another question.
But both Spielberg and George Lucas, the creator of Indiana Jones, acknowledge that since the last Indie film action movies have undergone considerable change, incorporating the tricks provided by new technology as they face up to competition from computer and video games.
However, Ford said the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was about 'old school, human-scale stunts'.
The first three Indiana Jones' films grossed more than 1 billion dollars, but Spielberg remained open to the question as to whether there would be any more.
'Only if you want more of them,' said Spielberg, who was making his first appearance in Cannes since 1982 when ET was screened at the festival. 'We will have an ear to the ground (to hear what people say).'
© Deutsche Presse-Agentur
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