Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
Disclaimer:
The movie I’m reviewing this week is rated PG, but spiritually rated: PG-13
There is content and gruesome images included in this review.
Indiana Jones month continues with the second installment: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. After the massive success of the first film that was beloved by both critics and audiences upon release, this of course warranted a follow-up 3 years later with the same people who worked on the original (not so much cast as opposed to crew) returning to breathe new life into the emerging franchise they created. Since most people refer to this franchise in terms of the original trilogy much like the Star Wars franchise including Raiders, Temple, and Crusade, Temple of Doom is often considered the “black sheep” of the original three films. While the spirit of Indiana Jones is still present in the size and scale of the production and a few fun moments similar to the first film, this movie’s tone steers hard into dark and miserable themes which is vastly different from what was present in the original movie.
This wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing having an “odd one out” sort of film that experiments more with what can be done in this setup such as The Dark Knight did in the Nolan Batman trilogy, but does this movie do that? Short answer: no. I don’t think I’d go so far as to say this is a bad film, but there are certainly far too many annoying character moments, head-scratching decisions, and scenes that absolutely didn’t age well for me to call it a good film either. My feelings on this film, as I imagine many others’ feelings are as well, are very complicated considering how there are both things to like and things to dislike in this movie, even occasionally in the same scene. Well, to get a better idea of what I’m talking about, let’s just drop ourselves into that pit of lava and get it over with.
Cover your hearts and pray to Lord Siva for protection, this is Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom!
So we open on a song and dance number brought to you by your headache for today: Willie Scott (played by Kate Capshaw). Isn’t this just how you imagined an Indiana Jones movie would begin? I mean I get it, the first movie’s intro was absolutely incredible and there’s no way we’re possibly going to top it so don’t even bother trying, but just like I said in the last review, the opening of a movie is also meant to prepare you for what you’re about to see. Also I’m not saying this is a bad intro, it’s just not an Indiana Jones intro. It doesn’t fit the spirit of the character and sure as heck doesn’t prepare you for the carnival of misery you’re in store for later on down the road, and no I’m not referring to the impeccable timing of Willie’s earsplitting screeches but that certainly does add to the misery. One other thing we see in this opening is that this movie isn’t just a sequel to the first film, but also a prequel (because George Lucas and prequels go so well together). While the first movie took place in the year 1936, this movie takes place in 1935. Why?
Nowhere in the first film were any of these characters mentioned which only further cements how little of an impact they have on the franchise, but if you are going to do a prequel to the original film, why not focus on some of the characters that were already set up in that film? You could’ve done a movie about how Indy and Belloq became rivals and how, if ever, Belloq was a respectable archeologist and what caused him to fall from grace. This movie could’ve explored how Jones became friends with Sallah or Marcus Brody and the various ways either of those two characters have influenced or assisted in Jones’ archeological pursuits in the past while further developing their characters. Show us sides of the characters we didn’t get to see and adventures that keep to the spirit of the original film and the character of Indiana Jones himself. On the subject of Indiana Jones though (played again by Harrison Ford), he’s probably the best part of this movie in my opinion.
What’s interesting with Indy being of course the only character that was in the previous film is how the filmmakers show just how much he’s changed over the years. The only real way to tell in this movie that it’s a prequel to the original is in Indiana Jones’ whole demeanor and attitude. In Raiders of the Lost Ark he was more of a good natured guy wanting to find lost relics for the purposes of preserving and studying them where in this film we see how he was more of a rogue intending to acquire antiquities for the sake of getting rich which is actually what he originally intends to do with the Sankara Stones when he hears about them being missing. He actually kinda goes through an arc in the movie which makes him more interesting to watch knowing what he’ll eventually become in the first film. In this movie however he’s basically an archeological mercenary, plundering ancient treasures at sky-high prices.
We also get to see how this plays out when he presents the remains of the Chinese emperor Nurhachi to his client Lao Che (played by Roy Chiao) and demands he be given what he’s owed before he stabs Willie. Despite the fact that would be the happy ending for the audience, Lao does give Indy his precious diamond in exchange for the remains, but Lao also reveals to him that what he’s been drinking was actually poisoned and Lao won’t give Indy the antidote unless he gives him back the diamond. We’re then briefly introduced to Jones’ sidekick Wu Han (played by David Yip) who immediately gets shot and killed which makes him a completely wasted character. With no backup in sight, Indiana takes matters into his own hands and starts a fight at the club (which is also called Club Obi-Wan, hehe) which makes this movie feel a bit more like Indiana Jones again.
The stunt work here is very reminiscent of action scenes like from the first film and can be pretty fun watching Indy and Willie scramble for the diamond and the antidote, use a giant rolling gong as a shield, and fall out of a window through multiple cloth awnings into the car of our next main character named Short Round (played by Ke Huy Quan in his first role). I’d imagine this is another character most people have complicated feelings for since he can have his annoying moments too, not nearly as many as Willie though, but I think what makes me like him more is Ke Huy Quan himself. He just has a natural charisma on screen that can’t be faked so I can’t be mad at him for too long even if he is yelling for no reason. It also says a lot about the writing in this movie that a child is consistently more useful than an adult woman. Either way, Short Round drives them past a random Dan Aykroyd cameo and towards a getaway plane which just so happens to also be owned by Lao Che’s Air Freight company.
So what do the pilots who work for Lao do? Do they murder their passengers in their sleep and dump the bodies out of the plane and into the mountainy wilderness where they’ll never be found? Nope, they wait until they’re asleep, dump out all the plane’s fuel, and jump out of the plane themselves giving Indiana Jones the opportunity to be Indiana Jones. Oh. Dumb. In this whole sequence of Indiana and co escaping the crashing plane there are far too many moments that very heavily challenge a viewer’s suspension of disbelief, significantly more so than in the first film. As I mentioned in that review as well, there are definitely moments in Raiders that are difficult to believe and unrealistic, but at least they look cool and add to the spectacle that cinema is supposed to provide. However, in this movie they just seem to throw out all manner of logic for the sake of having the heroes get an easy win because somehow our heroes survive two separate super high falls that were both enough to kill a car full of Nazis in the first movie but now only lightly jostle our main characters! Come on, really?!
People give Crystal Skull a lot of crap for its unbelievable nuke-a-fridge scene, but this gets a free pass?!
Anyway, they float along a river to an Indian village where the residents are starving and destitute because of an ancient evil that’s supposedly arisen anew from a nearby palace which came to this village, slaughtered innocent civilians, stole an ancient magical stone, and enslaved all the villager’s children. Indiana Jones everybody! Don’t get me wrong, the first movie also could reference darker themes (heck, just having Nazis in it is kinda dark on its own), but there was still an uplifting sense of adventure and fun to everything. Here we’re treated to the image of a child that escaped his enslavement malnourished, exhausted, and wheezing to give Indy some information he stole from his captors. That’s fun right, seeing adorable children suffering? I wouldn’t pay it much mind if this was just a one-off scene or something that was shown in passing, but the majority of the movie is like this from now on: just innocent people starving, dying, and wishing they were dead. Whee.
Not only that, but most of the comedy centers around our characters which, as I mentioned before, are divisive at best. That was another thing about the first film as well, is that if it ever did dip into a harsher tone it had clever comedy and fun characters to balance it out. Here we have Willie whining, Willie screaming, and Willie screaming. You will hate her more than Bella Swan by the end of this movie. Despite these setbacks they make it to the palace at Pankot where they’re introduced to the Prime Minister Chattar Lal (played by Roshan Seth) who invites them inside for dinner. Before we do that, we get some brilliant comedy of Willie wanting to make the moves on the Maharajah Zalim Singh (played by Raj Singh) only to realize that he’s a child causing Short Round to make a remark about how “maybe he likes older women”. Really movie, did you just make a pedophilia joke? Jeez, that’s nasty! At least that’ll be the nastiest thing in the movie…wait…
Spoke too soon…
I’m sure most of y’all are probably aware of this controversial scene in the movie where at dinner Willie and Short Round are served all manner of gross dishes including a dead mother snake with her live babies still inside her, what I’m pretty sure are peanut butter beetles, and chilled monkey brains as you can see here. Rightfully so this movie has received a lot of flak for this scene on account of its cultural insensitivity and also just how downright wrong it is. People of the Hindu faith have a very strict diet which would of course rule out any dishes such as the ones we see in the movie and if they were able to eat these kinds of foods they definitely wouldn’t be served in a palace, so this just seems like a cheap attempt at making a joke about culture shock especially considering that it’s obvious the filmmakers have never had Indian cuisine. Curry is one of the best things I’ve ever tasted! Put some respect on this food!
Interwoven with these scenes of nastiness is also a conversation between Indiana and Chattar Lal about the history of the Thuggee cult as described by the villagers and directly confronting the Prime Minister about the accusations made about the palace stealing their sacred rock. Of course Chattar and the Maharajah deny these claims and become offended with Indy as a result, so we end this scene on an uncomfortable note (I know what I said) and meet back up with the group later that night. During said time, Indy and Willie can’t decide if they want to have sex or not in another supposed to be humorous scene. Also, I never thought I’d say this but this is the first, and hopefully only, time I’ll ever ask John Williams to tone it down with the music. The whimsical ‘Will they/Won’t they’ have sex music is kinda much for this scene, and it also makes it less jarring when the Thuggee assassin comes out of the shadows to try to murder Indy. Again, could’ve waited until he went to sleep. He’s literally in your domain, how did you screw this up?!
We’re then treated to what’s possibly one of the most gruesome yet ridiculously hilarious deaths in any of these movies as the assassin is pulled by Indy’s whip into the ceiling fan and hanged. Again pretty unrealistic, I’m sure the fan probably would’ve fallen off the ceiling before pulling the weight of a full grown adult into it, but still an interesting image to say the least. This then prompts Indy to check Willie’s room to find a point of entry for the Thuggee which results in him finding a secret tunnel so he and Short Round investigate it together. Here they find a room full of bugs and a classic spike ceiling trap which means Willie has to save them. Joy. Of course they decide to do the whole ‘women and bugs’ joke with Willie in the bug room refusing to save Indy and Short Round at first since the lever to release the trap is inside a hole covered in bugs. Being a prequel though, the suspense is massively diluted since we know Indy’s going to have another movie after this one, so of course Willie overcomes her bad writing for this moment of brief usefulness.
This also reminds me that most of what we’ve seen in the past 30 minutes of screen time has been essentially pointless. A lot of it hasn’t involved any sort of character development (at least any good character development) and hasn’t furthered the story in any way which leaves me to wonder why it was even in the movie to begin with. In fact, there are quite a few scenes that were left in this movie which I think could’ve been completely cut out or significantly cut down such as the bug scene, the ‘Hard-to-Get’ scene, the dinner scene, the brainwashed Indiana plot point (this practically slows the movie to a halt for about 20 minutes), and much of the scenes of the group going from the small farming village to Pankot Palace. Much of the information discussed in these scenes (if any) is easy to grasp even if it wasn’t expressly shown on screen, or just completely not needed. Anyway, before I go off on a tangent I’ll get back on track, much like the movie does, when the group comes across the Thuggee sacrifice chamber which leads us to definitely the most memorable part of the movie: the Thuggee sacrifice itself.
This introduces us to Mola Ram (played by Amrish Puri), whom you never would’ve known the name of unless you paid attention during the credits, the leader of the Thuggee cult who shows us the power of the Hindu Goddess of Death Kali by ripping out a random guy’s heart, strapping him inside a metal cage, and lowering him into a pit of lava while he screams bloody murder, Mola Ram laughs maniacally, and the collective chants relentlessly. Good Lord, this scene is so freaking bonkers and over-the-top! This is also why some of the feelings that I have about this movie are so complicated, because on the one hand it does have those things I’ve been mentioning up until now, but it also does have hints of creativity and energy to it like this that can still make me enjoy it from time to time. It’s a complex love between the movie and I. Love might be a bit much, but you get my point.
Once the area clears out, Dr. Jones descends into the main chamber to retrieve the Sankara Stones the Thuggees irresponsibly left behind unattended, leaving Willie and Short Round a chance to get captured while he’s not paying attention. The reason he’s not paying attention is because he found where the child slaves are being kept. I should also mention that it’s kinda dumb to capture the village children to be your slave labor when you could’ve just picked able-bodied adults instead. Maybe Kali isn’t big on logic. By seeing this, Dr. Jones gets so angry he lobs a rock at the Slave Driver (played by Pat Roach in brownface (this movie is so progressive, y’all)) which causes him to be discovered and captured. What was your plan there Indiana? So Mola Ram gives him a talking to about Thuggee history and their relationship with the Sankara Stones, and personally I think this could’ve been a great opportunity to go in-depth and complex with his character and motivation for being evil. However, like most things in this movie, it’s completely wasted.
This movie also had the perfect opportunity to explore complex villain motivations considering how earlier in the movie Chattar Lal discussed with Captain Blumburtt (played by Philip Stone (yes, the Overlook Hotel’s original caretaker and Alex DeLarge’s father)) how the British occupation in India makes the natives feel like well-cared for children. They could’ve gone in-depth with how Mola Ram may have felt tempted to turn to this kind of faith as a result of British abuses in the area and how they may have affected him at a young age making him feel like the only way to overcome them was to do something as drastic as this. But no, he’s just crazy. I suppose you could infer that that’s why he does what he does, but it’s never made clear through the actions he takes in the film or what he commands his followers to do, and he doesn’t stand out nearly as much as say Belloq or Donovan as far as Indiana Jones villains are concerned.
One thing I do like about this scene though is how it’s brought to our attention that all of the world’s religions in this film universe are equally real as Mola Ram talks about how he intends to use the Sankara Stones to become so powerful as to overthrow the Muslim, Hebrew, and Christian Gods with Kali’s power. This to me just seems so quintessentially intertwined with the nature of archeology that I really enjoy hearing him discuss it, even if it is in the context of destroying them. Either way, to make Indiana a true believer in Kali, Mola Ram has him drink the blood of Kali which is supposed to brainwash him. He spits it out at first, and apparently no one else in the past has thought to do that before, so the brainwashed Maharajah uses an Indy voodoo doll to torture him until Short Round intervenes which gets them both whipped. After this, the Thuggees force him to drink the blood for real which causes him to have some…interesting vocal spasms. Also, the only reason that previous scene was in the movie was so you aren’t confused when the Maharajah uses the voodoo doll later.
So this is what starts the brainwashed Indy section which more than anything just drags things out. There’s no real point for this to happen other than adding an extra 15-20 minutes to the runtime getting it closer to 2 hours. You could’ve easily just had Indy fight off the Thuggee when he first saw them during that first sacrifice, especially since he’s able to do it just fine later after Short Round wakes him up again using fire which makes no sense by the way. If you wanted to make the movie longer but still make these scenes important, you could’ve had more character study like I mentioned before with Mola Ram, or maybe just show more of the characters that don’t get a lot of screentime in this like Chattar Lal, the Maharajah, Captain Blumburtt, or Wu Han for that matter to make these characters feel more like a driving force in the film. Outside of giving us the goofiest Indiana Jones moments with Indiana smiling like a doof-a-dork the whole time he’s brainwashed, these scenes don’t add anything besides 15-20 minutes to the movie.
There are also other moments during these scenes that could’ve played out more like Short Round escaping in a more creatively intricate way besides just smashing his chains with a pick that apparently no other child had thought to do which would make him seem like more of an asset. You also could’ve had Willie actually be dropped into the pit and killed, not just because I’d pop a bottle of champagne every time I see it, but also to explain why she wasn’t mentioned in the first film and make it play a bigger role in why Indiana decided to care more about the relics he finds as opposed to the money involved. Not only that, but this could also traumatize Short Round so much that he decides to abandon Indiana Jones and never travel with him again also explaining his absence in the first movie as well. I mean the movie is relentlessly mean-spirited already, it wouldn’t be that out of place and would actually make these movies feel more like a continuing story. However, we instead just get the copout victory of Indiana waking up, fighting off Thuggee priests, and saving Willie which just makes me want to strangle something!
I know y’all are just as frustrated as I am that Willie didn’t get her heart ripped out, so let’s just move on before I grind my teeth into dust. From here on Indy and the group save all the slaves and have a fight with the Slave Driver which alternates between Indiana Jones fight scene and Goofy animated short. Some of the things that happen in this scene are just so ridiculous you’d swear they came out of a cartoon. After all the children are freed though, the rest of the Thuggee chase after the group so they try to escape on minecarts. To be totally fair, and especially after the Slave Driver fight, this scene with the minecart battle is legit pretty fun. I kinda wanna hear the Donkey Kong Country music playing during the whole thing but other than that it has energy, creativity, and captures the spirit of Indiana Jones very well even if the effects aren’t always convincing. I swear Short Round turns into Stretch Armstrong during this scene.
With their enemies dispatched at the end of the tunnel they have to slow down, but the brake breaks. Indy then stops the cart manually but sets his shoes on fire in the process. Lucky for him there’s a bunch of water flooding their way courtesy of Mola Ram and the rest of the Thuggee. They escape it when they probably shouldn’t and climb up a cliffside where they find the climax of the movie. Not before a clever callback to the first movie though where Indy is briefly cornered by two Thuggee members with swords. He goes to shoot them but he doesn’t have his gun, so he just smiles and laughs. I legit laugh every time I see that. Back at the climax, Willie and Short Round run into Mola Ram and a swath of Thuggee members on a bridge where they get cornered and threatened to give up the stones that Indy has when he follows them to the same bridge. Indy, of course, refuses causing the Thuggee to close in on him from both sides of the bridge and Indy gets the brilliant idea to destroy the bridge with everyone on it.
Ashes, ashes, we all fall down and most of the Thuggee members on the bridge just straight up die at this point. The crocodiles in the river below seem surprisingly okay with only gnawing on their clothes though. Meanwhile, Mola Ram managed to hold on, but when he tries to rip Indiana’s heart out, Indiana somehow manages to grab him by the wrist and make Mola Ram punch himself instead. Okay. This villain death scene is pretty drawn out, but the weirdest part of it is when Mola Ram gets into a game of tug-o-war with Indy over the stones. Out of nowhere Indy just starts going on about how Mola Ram ‘betrayed Siva’ and speaking vague Hindi in an aggressive tone. When I was younger I assumed that this was probably some sort of trigger phrase to activate the stones and have them burn their way out of Indy’s satchel so Mola Ram would lose them, but nowhere in the movie is this ever confirmed. You’d think this would be an important part to make clear to the audience considering this is how the villain is eventually done in, but I guess they just left it up to interpretation. I don’t know, I’m just not sure Indiana Jones is the kind of movie that’s best left up to interpretation.
Mola Ram falls to his death as a result of his butterfingers during the fight over the stones, and the British army saves our heroes. Take it as you will that in this movie about India it’s the British who save the day. Oh no, but where’s Indy? Is he gonna make it? Oh yeah, he totally will. For some reason the movie tries to trick us into thinking he might be dead when we obviously know he’s not because of the whole prequel thing. Anyway, instead of running off with the remaining stone and making his ‘fortune and glory’ Indy decides to do the honorable thing and return it to the destitute farming village which is now flourishing upon the stone’s return. Willie and Indy kiss because they’re totally gonna be a couple guys, Short Round reunites with his favorite travel elephant and sprays water on them, the once slave children gather around them and the movie ends on a positive note that for an Indiana Jones movie is warranted, but for this movie is kinda out of place.
Naturally, as I’ve gotten older, there are so many things I notice in this movie now that just don’t work and make the viewing experience as a whole less fun, but there are also moments in the film that push the standard of creativity for the series and elevate the sense of fun and adventure. Does this make the movie a worthy follow-up to the first? I’m not sure I’d say that. Does it deserve to exist in the Indiana Jones film lineup? Personally, I think so. To be completely fair, I’d say if the Jones films went on for as long as they have, which they have at this point, it was only a matter of time before we got a film like this one that challenged the status quo of the series and took legitimate risks for the sake of making something especially over-the-top and memorable. That’s one thing that can’t be said for some other Jones films, but of course we’ll get to those when we get to those.
It also goes back to what I said at the start of this series of reviews, one of the main things about each of these movies is that they’re all memorable in their own way. What this movie is to me as I get older is essentially Indiana Jones’ version of an insane B-movie, constantly throwing crazy stuff at you without much of a break to it. Sure there is a bit of buildup to get to that point, but when it does get there, you can’t say it isn’t entertaining. There are still several problems with it and I stand by all of my criticisms I noted throughout the review, they are a legitimate reason someone may not be interested in seeing this movie which is completely understandable. At the same time though, some of those criticisms may also be a reason someone may want to see this movie which goes back to my whole insane B-movie comparison. Overall it’s definitely your choice whether this movie is right for you or not, but I can say with utmost certainty that there are far worse things out there for you to watch.
Even myself, I have to admit that if I’m in the right mood I can be a fan of this movie, but I can’t put it as high as Raiders on my rating scale. Due to its problems, the best I can give it is anywhere between 1.5 to 3/5 Chicken Tikka Masalas depending on my mood, but if after reading this you think you might be interested, feel free to give it a watch. If you have Disney+ as well, it’s not like you’ll be wasting any money either.
For your weekend movie night, you can decide for yourself if this is the right or the wrong Indiana Jones movie for you.
Other Indy Reviews
Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
(I make no claim of ownership for any of the images used in this post)
(Each of them are owned entirely by their respective copyright holders, which are not me)
(I am just a humble blogger who talks about movies, I do not make them)
(Yet)
