“Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”
** RATING | Harrison Ford hits the right notes of arch delivery and still-agile energy in the fourth installment of the Indiana Jones adventures, which began back in 1981 with “Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Too bad writer David Koepp couldn’t sustain the same fleet fun in a story that sends Indy and rebel-with-a-cause Mutt (Shia LaBeouf) to Peru to retrieve a mysterious skull. There’s some charm in the reunion that returns fiesty Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) to the fold. Cate Blanchett plays nemesis the Cold War Soviet. PG-13. 2 hours, 2 minutes. Lisa Kennedy
“Standard Operating Procedure”
*** RATING | Ultimately, “Standard Operating Procedure” is a movie about photographs. What factual proof and implied evidence do those infamous photos taken by American soldiers provide? Was Abu Ghraib a disaster wrought by a few soldiers who acted on their own to torment, humiliate and torture Iraqi prisoners? Or were they operating within a wartime culture that led them to believe their acts were SOP? Unreliable narrators abound to answer or deflect those questions. Though the film makes a good case that those aren’t entirely the right questions. R. 1 hour, 57 minutes. Lisa Kennedy
“War, Inc.”
** RATING | “War, Inc.” is a brave and ambitious but chaotic attempt at political satire. The targets: the war in Iraq and the shadowy role of Vice President Dick Cheney’s one-time corporate home, Halliburton, in the waging of the war. Dan Aykroyd plays an “ex-vice president,” unmistakably Cheney, issuing orders to CIA hit man Brand Hauser (John Cusack) to assassinate a Middle Eastern oil minister named Omar Sharif (not much of a joke), whose plans to build a pipeline in his country run counter to the schemes of the super-corporation Tamerlane. John Cusack deserves credit for trying to make something topical, controversial and uncompromised. The elements are all here but the parts never come together. R. 1 hour, 30 minutes. Roger Ebert
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