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I think I’m more of an apologist than most when it comes to the fourth INDIANA JONES movie, though even I (being the obsessive Indy fan that I am) have to admit there were more than a few aspects of the film that just didn’t work.  Despite earning almost $800 million in worldwide ticket sales, the sequel didn’t exactly blow audiences away the way we all hoped it would.  One of the weaker elements in many a mind was Shia LaBeouf’s character Mutt Williams, who ends up being Indy’s son.  Mutt was portrayed as a overly-defensive greaser, and while some of his qualities could be equated to the Indy persona, for the most part he wasn’t even a distant shadow of his dad.  But mostly, the role was just underwritten and underdeveloped.  Many have argued that Shia himself was the problem, and that his acting ruined anything that character could have been.  Well now it seems LaBeouf is taking some of the blame, and even speaking out about the lack of quality INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL conveyed.  Shia appeared at the Cannes Film Festival this week (his last time was in 2008 to push INDY 4) to promote WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS, the sequel to Oliver Stone’s 1987 hit WALL STREET.  In the film LaBeouf co-stars with Michael Douglas, who once again plays Gordon Gecko, and the advance word is pretty good.  But obviously when revisiting a story like this, there’s immense pressure to get it right.

Steve Zeitchik of the L.A. Times had some interesting quotes from Shia taken from his Cannes interviews.

“I feel like I dropped the ball on the legacy that people loved and cherished,” LaBeouf said, explaining that this upped the ante for him before he began shooting the “Wall Street” sequel. “If I was going to do it twice, my career was over. So this was fight-or-flight for me.”

Meeting with reporters Saturday on a terrace at the Hotel du Cap, he had some strong, confessional words about his acting in the film, which he said he felt didn’t convince anyone that he was the action hero the movie claimed him to be. “You get to monkey-swinging and things like that and you can blame it on the writer and you can blame it on Steven [Spielberg, who directed]. But the actor’s job is to make it come alive and make it work, and I couldn’t do it. So that’s my fault. Simple.”

LaBeouf said that he could have kept quiet, especially given the movie’s blockbuster status, but didn’t think the film had fooled anyone. “I think the audience is pretty intelligent. I think they know when you’ve made … . And I think if you don’t acknowledge it, then why do they trust you the next time you’re promoting a movie.” LaBeouf went on to say he wasn’t the only star on the film who felt that way. “We [Harrison Ford and LaBeouf] had major discussions. He wasn’t happy with it either. Look, the movie could have been updated. There was a reason it wasn’t universally accepted.”

LaBeouf added, “We need to be able to satiate the appetite,” he said. “I think we just misinterpreted what we were trying to satiate.”

Asked whether this was difficult to say, given his deep relationship with Spielberg, LaBeouf continued with the directness.

“I’ll probably get a call. But he needs to hear this. I love him. I love Steven. I have a relationship with Steven that supersedes our business work. And believe me, I talk to him often enough to know that I’m not out of line. And I would never disrespect the man. I think he’s a genius, and he’s given me my whole life. He’s done so much great work that there’s no need for him to feel vulnerable about one film. But when you drop the ball you drop the ball.”

Now, as I said, I’m a bit of an apologist for INDY 4.  The way I see it, you still get Harrison Ford playing Indy and kicking butt, and you still get Steven Spielberg behind the camera, and you still get John Williams, and you even get the long-awaited return of Karen Allen to the big screen… but yeah, it’s far from a perfect film.  However, the fact that Shia LaBeouf (who is such an easy target for negative fans to pick on) had the balls to say this stuff, and really admit to letting the fans down… that’s nothing but admirable.  He mentions in there the idea of having audiences trust you with the next thing you promote.  After reading this, I think I’d happily give him another chance with playing Mutt.  He knows now (and hopefully George Lucas and Spielberg do too) where things went wrong, and probably has some good ideas on how to fix them if given another opportunity.

What do you think?  Would you welcome the return of Mutt Williams?  Would you be up for INDY 5 if it was a smarter and better-made movie?  Tell us in the comments below!

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