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Summer Movie Guide 2008

From ''Hancock'' to ''Hellboy,'' ''X-Files'' to ''Pineapple Express'': EW's Coverage of the season's hottest movies

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CATE BLANCHETT Asked if her Agent Irina Spalko gives off a vaguely dominatrix vibe, Lucas says, ''Not so vaguely,'' and bursts out laughing
David James/© Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All rights reserved

Whether Ford can still hack it as an action hero is just one of many questions hovering around Crystal Skull. Per Spielberg's strict decree, not even the Paramount marketing team has been allowed to see any work-in-progress versions. Neither has EW. (Finishing touches weren't done until mid-April.) But we do have inside intelligence on what it's about: greed, abduction, the Cold War, anticommunist fervor, torture, theft, artifact-acquisition rivalry, and the post-WWII generation gap, among other things. (Now's a good time to bail out if you hate spoilers — even though we'd classify the ones that follow as mild.)

Remember dark-haired Marion Ravenwood, Indy's squeeze from Raiders? She's back and once again played by Karen Allen, now 56 and looking remarkably unchanged. Expect to see Marion and Indy trading gibes through lots of South American jungle jeopardy involving quicksand, amphibious vehicles, so-called Ugha warriors, and large, nasty ants. To the likely delight of teenage girls, Spielberg and Co. have also given Indy a sidekick played by 21-year-old Shia LaBeouf, a strong ticket-seller in Disturbia and Transformers last year. (Spielberg helped produce the latter.) Muscled up, LaBeouf adopts a sort of Marlon Brando punk-rebel persona right out of The Wild One as a leather-jacketed, switchblade-carrying, motorcycle-riding young searcher named Mutt Williams. Hmmm, Mutt — as in a mongrel, of mixed or uncertain parentage. Will it turn out he's the son of Indy and/or Marion? And does Crystal Skull set up Mutt as a spin-off-ready new hero? Fans have been arguing these points online for well over a year.

Another focus of chatroom buzz has been the baddies, a nasty group of Russian soldiers and operatives in search of the title object because of its reputed mind-controlling powers. (About time, says Ford, that Indy moved on from tangling with German SS officers, as he did in movies 1 and 3: ''We plum wore the Nazis out. Couldn't go there again.'') The leader of the KGB-backed pack is Cate Blanchett, in a severe, straight-banged, ink black wig, as Agent Irina Spalko. She's a born interrogator. Gimlet-eyed and handy with a sword, she crosses blades with Mutt. Asked if Agent Spalko gives off a vaguely dominatrix vibe, Lucas says, ''Not so vaguely,'' and bursts out laughing. Could be the kinkiest thing he's helped brainstorm since he put Princess Leia in a gold bikini and chains in Return of the Jedi.

Karen Allen remembers the day the phone rang in January 2007. She was at home in the Berkshires in Massachusetts, where, between TV and film gigs, she's built a life raising a son, teaching acting and yoga, and running a luxury-knitwear business. It was Spielberg on the line. He said, ''I bet you know why I'm calling.'' She had no idea. ''He said, 'Haven't you been watching television?''' she recalls. '''It's been announced! We're gonna make Indiana Jones 4! And guess what? You're in it!'''

NEXT PAGE: Five key writers try to produce a script Lucas, Spielberg, and Ford could all get behind — including Indiana Jones and the Saucer Men From Mars


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