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(I make no claim of ownership for any of the images used in this post)

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(I am just a humble blogger who talks about movies, I do not make them)

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Skylar Rackley 5/17/24 Skylar Rackley 5/17/24

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

Who’s ready for some creatively bankrupt Indiana Jones? No one? Well someone has to suffer with me!

Disclaimer:

The movie I’ll be reviewing this week is rated: PG-13

All content is unsuitable and too dumb for children and adults.

Well we knew this would happen at one point or another, but it doesn’t make it any easier to get through. Let’s just get right to it and not waste any time. Despite the fact that the public and critics considered the first three Indiana Jones films to be a perfect trilogy that need not be added onto, 19 years later Lucas and Spielberg thought it was necessary to give us Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Suck, I mean Skull. Nobody knew they wanted it at the time and as it turns out: yes, they didn’t want it. To this day the film boasts a 77% fresh critical rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but audiences are still heavily torn on it even with how much people seem to universally loathe it outside of online movie-rating sites. With the return of characters, plot threads, and action scenes we’ve all seen several times before in this franchise, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull almost seems proud to regurgitate all these things while also offering absolutely nothing original. You could practically do a complete listicle on how many moments in this movie were just straight-up lifted from past films in the series it’s so uninspired.

Say what you will about Temple of Doom, it at least took risks and gave us something worthy of holding the Indiana Jones name, this turns out to be just a bland action-adventure movie of the week. I’m practically bored just thinking about it, but let’s see if tearing into this movie detail by detail can result in more entertainment than what’s contained in the film’s entire runtime. Surely something of value has to come out of this hunk of junk and I understand that might be a bit too optimistic considering the circumstances but just let me have this okay!

Grab your fedoras and hitch a ride on the back of Shia LaBeouf’s motorcycle whether you want to or not because this is Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

So remember how in each of the previous Indiana Jones movies the Paramount logo faded into a shot of a mountain even if it was a mountain engraved on a gong? This movie opens with the Paramount logo fading into a shot of a gopher mound. I immediately hate this movie. A new record! The point of fading into a shot of a mountain was to get the audience excited for the sense of adventure the movie was about to offer them (even if Temple of Doom immediately threw that out for a song and dance number), but what am I supposed to do with this?! The gopher isn’t a main character (big duh on that one) and there’s ultimately no point in showing this scene since it doesn’t have any of the other characters we know in it. Sure the intros in the other movies tended to not have a connection to the main story of the films, but they at least included characters that were major players in them. Here we have a car driven by snot-nosed teens who immediately run over the mound. They’re blasting one of Elvis Presley’s greatest hits, ‘Hound Dog’, and challenging the military vehicle next to them to a race. As young idiots do. There’s a lot to hate about this intro which, much like I said in the Temple of Doom review, does not in any way match the spirit of Indiana Jones. In fact, I could probably make this entire review about how this intro is trash, but I’ll try to keep it concise.

For some reason, when the driver of the military vehicle next to these kids takes them up on their offer for a race he doesn’t get reprimanded and the officers don’t threaten the kids either for interfering in military business. Eventually they leave each other behind and we discover these officers were driving into Area 51 of all places which makes you question how the hell those kids were even able to get that close to Area 51 in the first place considering the fact that it’s Area 51. As it turns out though, those officers are actually Russian infiltrators who quite easily make it past Area 51’s defenses and we see that they’re keeping a guy named Mac (played by Ray Winstone) and the man himself Indiana Jones (played by a half-awake Harrison Ford) in two separate car trunks. This movie conveniently also takes place 19 years after the events of the previous movie in 1957, and I think now is as good a time as any to talk about Harrison Ford’s acting in this. Of course we’ve seen him pull off the suave, rugged, misunderstood action hero before even within this same franchise, but here he just seems…off. Especially watching this movie immediately after Last Crusade, it’s hard to believe that this is the same guy in both movies. In every scene he’s in it’s like he’s a goofy dad trying to do an impression of Indiana Jones as opposed to actually playing Indiana Jones. Maybe it’s his age or the fact that chronologically he’s been away from this character for nearly two decades, but he never feels quite like Indiana Jones, almost as if every direction he received in every scene was just “act cool”.

After Jack Sparrow-ing himself by crawling out of an embarrassing situation in the first few minutes of the movie, Indiana and the rest of the audience are introduced to this movie’s villain Irina Spalko (played by Cate Blanchett). Being a well-trained and skilled actress herself I don’t think Cate Blanchett was a bad choice for this role, but they just don’t write her or direct her in a way that’s interesting so she comes off as standard. Don’t get me wrong, some of the past Indiana Jones villains could be hokey or have their awkward moments, but they were not standard. Belloq as the shadowy reflection of our hero and trying to create a radio to God, Mola Ram and his desire to destroy all of the other religions leaving only the Thuggee, Donovan and his insatiable hunger for notoriety and rare antiquities to show off at his country club, and Spalko just wants to…know things. Yeah, that’s her entire character motivation: she wants to know things. They try to give her the slightest bit of development by explaining in a later scene that she was part of a Russian psychic science initiative, but it never plays any part in the movie outside of giving us an awkward moment of her trying to read Indy’s mind which doesn’t work (and is also incredibly stupid) and that’s it. In the end she has about as much staying power as Ford from the Godzilla remake in which she’s so memorable you forgot she even had a name.

She’s trying to find a box in Area 51, which for some reason is home to the same warehouse they put the Ark in at the end of Raiders, and this box’s contents are a complete mystery except to Indiana Jones. Less talking and more doing Indy, go find that box. As it turns out, the box she’s looking for has something in it that is so incredibly magnetic it’s able to attract gunpowder and shotgun shells from across the warehouse which is around the size of at least one football field. Why it doesn’t attract everything else magnetic in the warehouse such as the ceiling lamp parts, the guns the soldiers are holding, the crowbars they use to open the box, Spalko’s rapier, the armored trucks’ metal chassis, any metal glasses frames the soldiers may have on them, and several other magnetic objects that are likely being held in the warehouse including the Ark of the Covenant itself is anybody’s guess. Regardless, they find it, open the box with the crowbars I mentioned, only now do the crowbars get magnetized to the box after it’s already been opened, and Spalko takes it away. Before she can leave, Indiana Jones does his best Indiana Jones impression and fights one of the soldiers’ guns away from them and threatens to shoot Spalko. But uh-oh, it looks like Mac is a traitor! Oh good, I forgot I don’t care.

Essentially what they’re doing here is trying to create a sidekick that’s sort of a combo of Satipo from Raiders and Wu Han from Temple. Of course having Indy’s sidekick betray him is ripped directly from Satipo and Raiders (you could argue Elsa from Crusade as well), but they try to make it sound like they have this long, complicated history together. We never see it though, much like Wu Han in Temple, so why are we supposed to care about this? This doesn’t make me feel concerned for Indy’s well-being or the conflict between these characters, all it does is make me feel annoyed that I could’ve chosen to watch one of those movies instead of this. Indy escapes, of course because of the whole Indiana Jones thing, but briefly on his way out we get treated to a shot of a broken box revealing the Ark of the Covenant inside. This offers no narrative purpose other than reminding you that Raiders existed.

I hope you’re looking forward to where this *doesn’t* go.

After this bit of action we’re treated to most people’s biggest issue with this movie. While Indy escapes from the Russians, he makes his way to a small town where it appears that everyone is more wooden and fake than the rest of the actors in this movie. Or that might just be because they’re mannequins. Yeah, as it turns out, Indy found his way into a nuclear testing site and a bomb is about to go off very soon. First he tries to make it out by hitching a ride in one of the Russian’s cars which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. Weren’t you trying to get away from them anyway, why would they help you in this situation? With nowhere else to turn, he’s forced to hop into a fridge to save himself. Which works. What makes it even worse is that Indy makes it out without a single scratch on him despite being thrown miles from his starting point and he bypasses the same car he tried to escape in earlier while they get fried in the blast. Okay, so there’s elevated logic for the purposes of giving us an unforgettable adventure and there’s Wile E. Coyote cartoon. This is a Wile E. Coyote cartoon.

At least after this bit of ridiculousness we’re treated to charming and likable characters that will last us throughout the rest of the mo- No we’re not. Much like with Mac earlier we’re introduced to these people in a bunker that Indy has supposedly known for years but they have absolutely no on-screen chemistry together so they leave no impact on us. It only makes it better when we cut back to Barnett College where Dr. Jones is teaching his class again (because this movie wants to remind you how good Raiders and Crusade were) where he once again gets interrupted by faux Marcus Brody: Charlie (played by Jim Broadbent). This movie’s favorite pastime is to introduce characters that have no bearing on the story and leave no impact on you whatsoever. I give the movie some credit because they couldn’t bring back Denholm Elliott to play Marcus in this role since he had actually passed 3 years after the release of Crusade from tuberculosis, but they don’t really treat his passing that honorably because they essentially replace his character without a second thought and with someone who’s about as bland as everyone else in this movie.

Charlie tells Indy that since the FBI is looking for him after the incident with the Russians, he has no choice but to give him an indefinite leave of absence until the matter is resolved. On his way out of college town, a young man interrupts him while his train is leaving the platform. This man is named Mutt (played by Shia LaBeouf) and he’s so cool that he rides a motorcycle, has more hair gel than every boy band member, carries a switchblade, and is decked out in leather. It’s not so hard for me to say that I instantly don’t believe that this kid is from 1957. Every time he’s on-screen I’m not so much prepared to see how he adapts to the world he’s about to be thrust into as opposed to prepared for him to scream at me:

It’s him that reveals to Indy how his mentor/father figure Dr. Harold Oxley has been captured alongside his mom on the quest to find the city of Akator also known as El Dorado. I don’t know, to me it just feels weird having Indiana Jones being thrust into a position like this as opposed to actively seeking it out like in the other movies. It feels less archeological and more mercenary like. They share some shoddy character development until they’re interrupted by a gang of Russians trying to steal Indiana for his expertise again, but Mutt punches a random guy in the face allowing them to escape kicking off another chase scene in a Jones film, but this one feels particularly off for one main reason: there isn’t as much of a sense of danger like in the other chase scenes. All of the previous chase scenes in the previous movies felt tense because they took place in areas where Indy was outnumbered and at a loss for support. Here it takes place in Indy’s college town which massively dilutes the tension and sense of urgency since it’s a place he’s familiar with and a place he could easily find backup in. That and they come across one of Indy’s students who he tells to “Get out of the library” which goes against what was mentioned in Crusade where Indy mentioned in his class that 70% of archeology is done in the library. Not the main reason to hate this scene, but it definitely doesn’t help.

In the end they make it to a safe place where Dr. Jones decodes the letter that Mutt gave him from Oxley saying that the pathway to Akator starts in Nazca, Peru. They fly their way there but the movie pauses briefly in the middle of their flight to highlight how Indiana Jones fell asleep on the plane. Why did you show that? Even in Temple when they paused the transition from Shanghai to Delhi they showed it was because there was something important to the story that took place, falling asleep is not exactly pertinent for the audience to know! Once they’re there though, they pick up the trail from where Oxley left off and partake in more dialogue that makes me question even more why the filmmakers thought this was a necessary follow-up to make. Mutt reveals how he left school several times and Indy questions him on his life goals which no one cares about. It will come back into the movie later in a weak twist that no one asked for, but we’ll get to that when we get to that. That and once they do pick up Oxley’s trail, it isn’t really that fun.

Everything the characters are discussing at these points are verbal dotted lines on a treasure map which I might be able to forgive if the actors were more invested in what they were saying like in the previous movies, but here it sounds boring and it feels boring. Back in the first three movies the characters talk about the things that they’re looking for with awe, excitement, delight, and wonder. It helps to build up these artifacts as something truly special and worth searching for, but that’s not here. The only reason the characters are searching for this thing is to save characters we don’t even know and it’s not even fully clear what they’re searching for. Are they trying to find the city of El Dorado or this crystal skull they mentioned in only one scene so far? Since the focus is so unclear, why should anyone care about what’s happening?

Anyway they make it to some burial ground where they’re attacked by tribes people and Indy manages to defeat one of them by blowing a poison dart into the back of his throat. Because these tribes people thought they might be facing Indiana Jones so they decided to make their poison darts double-sided, jeez this movie is stupid! They carve their way deep into the burial site, Mutt gets stung by a scorpion and doesn’t die which makes the audience cry, and they finally discover the majorly built-up crystal skull which continues to make every scientist watching this movie fuming with rage with how inconsistently magnetic it is. After taking it out of the burial site they’re cornered by the Russians and Mac who capture them and somehow managed to find their location despite not having any way of following them without any clues from Dr. Oxley. Let’s be real though, if it’s making this movie go faster I’ll take it, and they’re taken to the Russians’ campsite.

The skull is of course stolen from Indy and Mutt and they try to give Mac a bit more of a motivation here, but it’s just every 90’s Disney villain motivation: money. In fact, much like Elsa in the previous film, Mac’s character really doesn’t make a whole lot of sense here and often goes back and forth between good and evil on a whim, but unlike Elsa in the previous film Mac leaves way less of an impression than she did and offers an emotionless performance making us care about him even less. We also find out what the skull is: an alien skull! Isn’t that just what you wanted out of an Indiana Jones movie? Sci-fi? Was anyone thinking when they wrote this?! We liked the previous Indiana Jones films because they dealt with legendary and religious artifacts that were grounded in folklore and ancient history, not alien invasions!

Despite my complaints, the movie continues and Spalko tries to manipulate Indy with the skull which also ends up going nowhere and we finally are introduced to Dr. Harold Oxley in person (played by John Hurt). I’m just gonna say what everyone’s thinking too: John Hurt has a tendency to be the kiss of death for modern cinema. Don’t get me wrong, he’s a great actor and I’ve loved him in other movies back in the 70’s and 80’s, but for some reason if anyone casts him in a movie from the year 2000 onward, it’s pretty much guaranteed to be crap. Oxley is under some kind of skull hypnosis or whatever and isn’t thinking clearly, but don’t worry, Marion Ravenwood is also here (played again by Karen Allen)!

Just like Harrison Ford, Karen Allen doesn’t seem to know how to play her old character from 27 years prior, because she’s just as awkward as everyone else yet they still try to make her a badass. The only reason we’re still able to recognize her as Marion is because of John Williams’ score which plays her theme from Raiders whenever she’s on screen. Considering that, this is also as good a time as any to mention the music in this movie. Usually even if John Williams scores a terrible movie I can still hold on to the only good aspect in it which was his amazing orchestrations. In this movie though, it sounds like complete autopilot. While there are original songs conducted for this movie, all of them sound like generic action music that any other composer could’ve written outside of when the movie wants to remind you of which characters are on screen like with Indy, Marion, and Henry Jones’s brief cameo. Outside of that, none of them are anything I’d be itching to put on my Spotify playlist.

With Marion revealed and Indiana as horny as he usually is for any woman he’s ever met in these movies, he decides to help the Russians to find Akator as quickly as possible and decipher Ox’s cryptic messages. In the process though, Mutt decides now is a great time to mount an escape which ultimately goes nowhere since they’re recaptured less than 5 minutes later. Why was that even in the movie? Then we have a Twister-esque argument between Indy and Marion since it was revealed that Mutt is actually Indy’s son and Indy tries to insert himself into Marion’s parenting of Mutt. It seems like the movie is trying to play this for laughs, but much like in Twister, it’s just annoying as hell and drags the movie out which is the last thing I want in this movie. Their argument eventually culminates in the beginning of another chase sequence much like what happened after Henry was introduced in the last movie, and of course they capture the crystal skull for themselves again along with Oxley. Not before a completely unbelievable sequence of Mutt getting separated from the group and rejoining them by meeting up with a bunch of monkeys and swinging on vines as if his real parents were Kala and Kerchak. Oh, and also the side antagonist dies. Since Spalko is so standard and forgettable in this, I bet you can imagine how much of an impact this guy left. I don’t even know what his name was and I don’t care to look. I guess his death is kinda cool though. Maybe even cooler than Spalko’s eventual death, but we’ll get to that.

Mac rejoins our heroes (Does it really matter?) and they find the entrance to Akator. He’s secretly dropping trackers though because he’s still not entirely on their side, but they make their way in by beating the crap out of ancient artifacts. Remember when the slightest movement in an ancient temple could result in death? Now just go ham on it like it’s a Street Fighter bonus level. The circle of alien skeletons awaits them there but Mac betrays them again and Spalko walks in with her team of Russians. After taking the skull from Oxley she reattaches it to the one skeleton missing its head and they spring to life. It was explained earlier (poorly) that after the circle is completed it’ll grant one wish, and Spalko wishes to know everything. Again, solid motivation for a Jones villain. Upon activating the alien circle the city starts to fall apart around them so Jones and his compatriots escape, except for Mac who the movie gives a weird exit to. He ends up dying, but before being crushed by the disintegrating city they try to give him a sort of emotional moment with Indy which falls flat because we have no idea what his character is supposed to be and in the end nobody cares. Spalko on the other hand is practicing her early 2000’s CG effects.

Okay, so we’ve had iconic death scenes in the past ranging from face meltings, to explosions, to aging, what’re you gonna do this time?

Umm, did she just turn into a fart?
How epic…

On their way out we’re treated to even more mind-blowing effects of a UFO rising from the ashes of the city. It’s about as stupid as it sounds, but that’s pretty much this whole movie in a nutshell. Apparently this also clears up whatever was going on with Oxley because he’s now back to normal (I know it was eating you up inside if he would return to normal) and he says that the UFO didn’t make its way to space, but to the “Space Between Spaces.” Honestly, I’d be surprised if the movie didn’t describe it like that, but the only thing I can think of whenever I hear that is just the space between your couch cushions which should not be the big takeaway from your Indiana Jones movie. Anyway, they make it back home, Marion and Indiana get married because they’ve proven in the past hour that they’re totally going to be a great couple, and we wrap up what’s, in my opinion, the worst Indiana Jones movie ever made.

Much like what I said in my Temple of Doom review, that movie wasn’t good, but it at least stood out amongst the other Indiana Jones films and had it’s own sense of creative passion. This movie has no passion in it at all. It plays it completely safe by just rehashing everything the previous films did, offering nothing creatively stimulating or intriguing, and is just a boring soulless mess. That’s also why I feel comfortable calling it the worst Indiana Jones movie ever made, because while the previous movies had some parts that didn’t make sense, awkward character moments, or over-the-top action, they still had a unique identity and style that made people enjoy them. This movie has no identity, and unlike Temple of Doom, deserves no place in the Indiana Jones lineup. I almost feel uncomfortable even calling it an Indiana Jones movie, because it doesn’t deserve that title.

I suppose if you never really got that invested in any of the previous movies this one would just seem like ‘par for the course’ to you which is also how I assume this movie managed to get a 77% critical score on Rotten Tomatoes, purely from the perspective of a mindless action/adventure movie. I’m sure if you’re a fan of those kinds of movies and don’t tend to analyze character, story, or the size and scale of the journey you’re watching you could enjoy the film fine, but for mine and Indiana Jones fans’ money, this is an ancient artifact that deserves to stay buried in the ground until the end of time.

And for this reason, I feel compelled to give this movie my lowest rating of any other film: 0.5/5 gophers. While occasionally the size of the shots and cinematography can be pretty, there’s absolutely nothing else to appreciate in this film.

Other Indy Reviews

(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)

Skylar Rackley 5/10/24 Skylar Rackley 5/10/24

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

You have chosen wisely by joining me for my review of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Here, Indy and his father embark on a quest to find the Holy Grail. My soul is prepared, how’s yours?

Disclaimer:

The film I’m reviewing this week is rated: PG-13

There will be some gruesome images included in this review.

While my opinions on the last film were mixed at best, it did still make a lot of money at the time of its release which prompted Spielberg, Lucas, and the Indy crew to churn out one more movie that was originally supposed to bring the Indy films to a close. Pulling out all the stops and giving us a follow-up in keeping with the tone of the original film, The Last Crusade is a much more widely praised sequel as opposed to its predecessor and considering how long it’s been since the first time I’ve seen it, I really had a fun time watching it again. To be straight up, I honestly didn’t remember much from the movie before rewatching it for the sake of this review, but once I rewatched it I was surprised how I had such a hard time remembering these moments.

Much like Raiders, this movie deals in not a whole lot of logical moments, but at least fun ones that Indiana Jones has become known for and they are very memorable. I think the main reason I had a hard time remembering them before was also because I watch movies much differently now then I did when I first saw this movie. Mostly because I have this whole review blog that you’re reading right now. There are legit interesting characters that play their parts well, creative camera work and stunt choreography, and it all amounts to an adventure that fits perfectly into the Indiana Jones canon. Despite how much crap I gave it in the last review, I think Temple of Doom did earn its place among the rest of the Indiana Jones films, though The Last Crusade definitely fits much more comfortably in the Indiana Jones lineup then Temple of Doom. Although, even with the familiar tone, humor, and pizzazz of Raiders, does The Last Crusade still hold up after all these years? Well, there’s only one way to find out.

Find your dad, give him a big hug, and prepare for this holy grand adventure with Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade!

As I said in the intro, this movie is much more in the mold of the first film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, then the second film, Temple of Doom. It begins, similar to Raiders, with an intro having no real bearing on the story where we see Indiana (played in this flashback by River Phoenix) in his first ever adventure as a child: trying to recover the Cross of Coronado from what he believes to be looters in the year 1912. It has energy, intrigue, and action even if we don’t have to worry about him potentially dying. We see a lot of things that explain the character that he’s become from the fact he used to be a boy scout where he presumably learned about self-defense, survival, and other techniques we see him utilize throughout the films while also explaining his sense of justice and morality. Towards the end of the intro we’re introduced to his relationship with his father (played in this flashback by Alex Hyde-White) which shows how he may also feel inclined to do dangerous things and acquire highly sought after relics for the purpose of getting his father’s attention which he never receives since his father is too preoccupied with his hobby of chronicling the path to finding the Holy Grail. These and several other little details are made aware to us in this opening which once again also serves as a pretty solid short film on its own as well.

Another detail that’s brought up in this opening is also the origin of Indiana’s snake phobia, which is honestly the one detail that I’m not so sure adds up. It’s shown how when Indy is trying to escape from the supposed looters, he ends up on a circus train and travels through several different animal cars. In the reptile section he ends up falling into a box full of snakes and getting covered in them by accident which is the catalyst for his future snake phobia. While I’m in no way saying that this would be a pleasant experience, I’m just not sure that this moment on its own would be enough to create a lifelong snake phobia. Personally I think it would be much funnier if it’s never explained why Indy has a fear of snakes. They could still show in this intro how when Indy is explaining to his boy scout friend Herman (played by J. J. Hardy) what should be done about the looters Indy throws a snake to the side without a second thought indicating that his phobia was created at some point throughout his adventures, but then never show what caused it. Instead they could have in a movie like Kingdom of the Crystal Skull one of the characters ask him at some point why he hates snakes so much and he responds something to the effect of “I don’t want to talk about it” making it kinda creepy and kinda funny at the same time. Either way, this opening is still pretty solid and fun much like the Raiders intro as well. Maybe not of the same caliber as that one, but still pretty good.

After the flashback, we flash forward to the year 1938 where Indiana (played a third time by Harrison Ford) is once again attempting to get the Cross of Coronado, since he couldn’t get it in the flashback, from its owner only credited as “Panama Hat” (played by Paul Maxwell). At this point Indiana Jones is officially Indiana Jones so he’s able to get it fairly easily and Panama Hat along with his crew are killed when his ship blows up on the water in the middle of a storm. Surprisingly it wasn’t Indiana who killed them, this time it was a complete accident. This never comes back into play later in the movie, but at least we can be proud of how much Indy has grown up. Back at Dr. Jones’ University, we see how after getting the Cross he’s actually been shirking his responsibilities as a professor lately since his students are all clamoring to get some answers from him about papers, tests, and grades. Seems like his night life has overtaken his day job in recent years, because while he manages to escape his students (with his trusty fedora of course) he’s quickly flagged down by some unknown people in a car who take him to a pretty swanky house.

This house happens to be the property of a certain Walter Donovan (played by Julian Glover) who brought him here to take a look at a recent discovery he’s made. Even before we know Donovan is going to be the villain of this movie, we can see just how obsessed he is with antiquities in his intro and how he sees them less like an important part of history that needs to be preserved and more like a high-end baseball card collection. He’s an overzealous rich snob who just wants to be the one to say he has this or that object in his collection and nothing else, even going so far as to partner with the worst of humanity in order to acquire them. Here we see that Donovan has found a broken piece of a tablet that’s the first of two markers that lays out the location of the Holy Grail and he also tells Indy that he’s already gotten a hold of his father to aid him in the search, but he’s disappeared. One of this movie’s strengths is getting the audience to care about this character quickly, mostly due to Indy’s reaction to hearing his father is missing. We never see his face, but in a low-angle shot we see him grip his fedora a little tighter upon hearing the news. We’ve only seen Indy’s dad once for less than a minute so far in this movie, he was a total jerk to his son, and yet I still am just as worried about him as Indy is.

Indiana decides to check on his father at home, but only finds his house completely ransacked with today’s mail opened. That’s when he remembers that earlier, back at his University, he received a package from Venice, Italy which was the last known location of his father as Donovan described. Which also makes me wonder why he thought he’d be at home. Kinda weird. One of the things I have a bit of a problem with in the beginning of this movie is that it can be a bit hard to follow why characters do what they do. Later it’s assumed that Donovan and his Nazi sleeping buddies captured Indy’s dad for the sake of luring Indy out, but why would they want to get in contact with Indy in the first place? Did they forget that Indiana Jones is Indiana Jones and he’d probably be able to take them down in a 2 hour running time or less? I suppose you could infer that Donovan and the Nazis think there’s no way Indiana Jones would be able to take them down despite the fact he did exactly that 2 years prior (movie-verse time) when they tried to steal the Ark of the Covenant, being the snobby overconfident types that they are. To me it still seems like a major lapse in logic though.

Either way, part of that is to be expected in these movies at this point, because much like I mentioned in my two previous reviews, the logic in these movies is waved for the purposes of giving us an unforgettable, heart-pounding adventure. I give leeway for the moments that enhance the fun of the movies and are cool/entertaining, and do not give leeway for the moments that aren’t fun and are dumb/annoying. If you manage to look past these details, I’d say the movie is still pretty fun, so let’s get to the rest of it. So, in the package was Daddy Jones’ Grail Diary, a collection of all the bits of info on the Grail he’s collected over the course of 40 years which prompts Indy to take Donovan up on his offer of getting 2 tickets to Venice to pick up where Daddy left off and find out where he went. Along with Marcus Brody (played again by Denholm Elliott), Indiana finds Professor Jones’ partner Dr. Elsa Schneider (played by Allison Doody) who immediately raises…suspicions. One of the first things out of her mouth is how Indiana has his father’s eyes. Wouldn’t you tell that to someone you just met?

She leads Indy and Brody back to the library where Professor Jones was last seen and find out that he discovered before going missing that there was a tomb in the library, since the library used to be a church, and the second marker is buried in it along with one of the knights of the First Crusade. Through some clever puzzle solving, they find its location and break into it. This raises no suspicions from the librarian because he’s comedically stamping books at the same time they’re smashing the tiled floor. When I first saw this I also thought it was a bit of a stretch, but Elsa actually explains before entering the library that the library is closing soon and that she’s arranged for the staff to allow them to stay longer after. Still kind of a stretch that the librarian wouldn’t just look up to see them smashing the floor in, but I suppose it’s kinda funny. Elsa and Indy drop themselves into the tomb and make their way past rats, a petroleum river, and in-universe movie references to Sir Richard’s tomb where they find the second marker. Another way to see how Elsa isn’t normal is that after being lowered into a pit full of skulls and bones, she just smiles. That’s not strange at all.

However, another group of people follow Elsa and Indiana and set fire to the petroleum river to try to kill them. They of course escape which kicks off a classic Indiana Jones chase sequence which is different for taking place in the rivers of Venice on boats instead of cars like normal. See, it’s not the same thing if it’s on the water. I shouldn’t be too hard on it though, because that’s literally what these movies are known for are its chase sequences. Eventually, Indiana catches the lead assassin and tries to get him to say where his father is, but the assassin seems completely comfortable with dying. As a result, Indiana spares the assassin who divulges that his name is Kazim (played by Kevork Malikyan) and he’s a member of a secret organization called the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword which has sworn for years to keep the Holy Grail safe from plunderers. They seem to be doing a bang-up job at it too. If I’m being honest, Kazim and the Brotherhood doesn’t end up doing that much by the end of the movie besides building up the Grail as the truly powerful relic that it is in which no one person can really be trusted to look after it, but unlike most other groups in movies like this that have one job and can’t freaking do it, Kazim’s group at least tries their best, and in their defense, nobody else has ever come this far in the quest for the Grail.

Since Elsa and Indy spared his life, he lets them know Indy’s dad is being kept in the Castle Brunwald in Salzburg, Austria. Before they go, Indy and Brody discover where to begin there quest for the Grail with the information they got from the second marker, Indy discovers his and Elsa’s room ransacked as well, and he and Elsa have a quick nookie session. Elsa is just another one of Indy’s hos-on-the-go so she doesn’t offer a whole lot throughout the movie. She does have a pretty big secret that’s revealed later, but we’ll get into that when we get into that. In Austria, she and Indy break through the castle’s butler security through a comedy routine you either like or don’t like, and sneak through to find where Indy’s dad is being kept. Let it be known though that someone got paid to have Indiana Jones say the line “Nazis, I hate these guys” like a sitcom character with a catch-phrase. After that bit of awkwardness, Indy breaks into his father’s room where he’s promptly hit over the head with a vase by said father. One thing I can say is that everything you need to know about Henry Jones (played by the late great Sean Connery) is shown in this scene:

Addressing his son not in a way that shows concern for his well-being or surprise that he’s just crashed through his window, but more irritation that he’s here when he isn’t supposed to be. This is essentially his whole character: gruff, stern, and hardened. He’s not the kind of father you’d expect a lot of sympathy from or the kind that would be interested in what his son does with his life, it would certainly take a quest for a biblical relic and nearly dying to make him see things differently. Before I move on, I’d also just like to point out the relationship between Indiana and Henry is instantly believable. It’s obvious Ford and Connery worked hard to get their relationship down, because whenever you see them interact with each other you really feel like these two are estranged father and son. Funny enough though, crashing through a window makes a lot of noise, so they’re quickly discovered by Nazis, and it seems like Indiana and Henry are doing pretty well at first with Indiana mowing down a few of them and startling his father in the process, until they come across our side antagonist Colonel Vogel (played by Michael Byrne) who’s taken Elsa hostage. You totally forgot she was here didn’t you? I did.

Vogel says if Indy doesn’t put down his gun he’ll shoot her, but Henry says Elsa is a Nazi. Indy doesn’t listen to his father and relinquishes the gun only to have Elsa backstab him because, as it turns out, Henry was right: she is a Nazi. The part she essentially ends up playing in the movie from here on is making Indy more cautious about who he has sex with and it’s sort of hinted at that she was forced into being a Nazi since she has a few moments later in the movie where she seems to have sympathy for Indy, experiences regret for her actions, and actively screws Donovan and the Nazis over, but we don’t really know much about her outside of that. She’s a bit of a wildcard and difficult to pin down, so I could never get that invested in her character. Either way, it’s because of her deception that Indy and Henry get captured and it’s officially revealed that Donovan is working with the Nazis to recover the Holy Grail.

They steal the Grail Diary but the map pages are missing because Indy ripped them out and gave them to Marcus. Marcus then called for Sallah (played again by John Rhys-Davies) who met him in the city of Iskenderun which sits upon the ruins of the city of Alexandretta which was revealed earlier to be the starting place for following the map to the Grail. Indy boasts that Marcus is a skilled man who will be able to disappear into any crowd and could find the Grail on his own to throw his enemies off guard, but as it turns out, Marcus is kind of a dork with no real skills in any of those fields. By the time Sallah meets Marcus in Iskenderun, he’s quickly discovered by their enemies and captured in quite possibly the most creatively ridiculous way anyone has ever been captured in these movies. Sallah tells Marcus to hide in a nearby shop and escape through the back door, but the shop isn’t actually a shop. It’s actually an armored truck disguised as a shop and once Marcus is inside, the door is closed on him and he’s driven away. Don’t feel too bad Sallah, if anything it was a little funny.

Meanwhile, back with Indy and Henry, they’re left in Austria tied to a chair with no supervision allowing them to escape by setting the castle on fire and driving away in a motorcycle resulting in another fun chase scene ending with an argument between Indy and Henry. Indy wants to go to Iskenderun to get Marcus, but Henry wants to go to Berlin to get his diary back. It’s only now that Henry says there’s some important info in the diary he forgot about and they need it to be prepared for the final Grail challenges, so Indy reluctantly decides to go there. Once in Berlin, we’re treated to the lovely sight of a book burning and Indy forcefully takes the diary back from Elsa. On their way back out, Indy is lucky enough to get an autograph from the last person anyone would ever want an autograph from.

He and his father then take the first zeppelin out of Germany and disconnect the aircraft’s radio to prevent anyone from calling back to Berlin reporting fugitives on board. The German pilots recognize this fairly quickly though forcing Indy and Henry to escape on a convenient bi-plane attached to the zeppelin where they’re chased yet again, this time by fighter pilots. I like how with Henry’s character they also address how what Indiana does for a living is pretty messed up, because to him, and us the audience, we’re pretty used to seeing him kill people left and right all the time, but with Henry along for the ride, he acknowledges how all this is of course a new experience for him. I’m also left to think that if I saw stuff like this in real life, I’d be pretty freaked out too, just like Henry. We briefly flash to the Republic of Hatay where we see Donovan and his lackeys bribe the Sultan (played by Alexei Sayle) into giving them troops and other forms of support including a mother-flipping tank. I was only just made aware of this state’s existence and I had no idea they had freaking tanks at their disposal!

This also comes as a surprise to our good guys after they meet up with Sallah in a jump-cut and catch up with Donovan’s crew to try to rescue Brody. Here not only are we once again shown a pretty fun action sequence (only after writing that did I notice just how many of these are in this movie and series as a whole) with Indy trying to take on a tank by himself and even Henry comes into his own a bit and manages to take out a couple Nazis himself. One he even defeats through a method that would make Jack Nicholson’s Joker proud.

After a long, drawn-out sequence building to the inevitable comeuppance of our side-antagonist Colonel Vogel by him getting thrown over a cliff while still in the tank, we also see another Indiana Jones death fake-out. This one stands out to me however when compared to other Jones death fake-outs, because it focuses less on trying to trick you into thinking he’s dead (because by this point nobody’s buying that) but rather it focuses on Henry’s reaction to thinking his son is dead. In this moment we see a different side of him where he regrets not being a better father to him and not telling him what he’s always wanted to tell him. We never find out what he wanted to tell him, but even never knowing that information, this scene still works pretty well in showing how Henry likely puts on a facade for the sake of his son (most likely to prove to him that he’s strong) and never loved him in the way he should have. Part of what makes this scene work so well is also Sean Connery’s acting pedigree, because his delivery makes me want to tear up every time.

Eventually it’s revealed he isn’t dead (duh) in a pretty comedic way I might add, and they finally make their way to the end of the movie in the Grail Temple. Donovan’s crew is already there but they’re failing pretty miserably at getting past the Temple’s first booby trap. It doesn’t take long for Indy’s gang to get spotted and Donovan decides he wants Indy to get the Holy Grail for him, so to properly motivate him he shoots his father. This guy is just a deliciously devilish douchebag. I like d-words right now. At this point the tension shoots through the roof, especially after that scene we just had not long ago where Henry showed us how many layers he was hiding beneath the surface, and it gets the audience to care for him all the more after we see that he might die. Since he’s mortally wounded, the only thing that can save him is the Big Man Upstairs and His magic cup, so best get goin’ Indy. He does just that and makes it past three trials which are all pretty cool except for maybe the first one that’s a bit less “holy” and a bit more “Intro Temple from Raiders,” and makes it to the chamber of the Grail where he finds the last remaining Grail Knight (played by Robert Eddison) waiting.

At first the knight attacks Indy because that’s what’s supposed to happen, but we don’t have time for that right now, and the knight is kinda…out of shape anyway. He tries to pass his honor to Indiana since he ‘vanquished’ him, but right then is when Donovan and Elsa walk in and try to recover the Grail. Psych! The room is full of Grails! Which one is it? You must choose, and choose wisely now because the Holy Grail will grant you life everlasting, but the Wrong Grail will rip it away from you. No pressure, there’s only hundreds of them. Donovan starts AP-ing pretty hard (Analysis Paralysis to the uninitiated) so he asks Elsa to pick one which she does. He drinks from it and…prepare yourself. While we’ve gone through a lot of different character deaths in these movies already, this one is quite possibly the most horrifying Indiana Jones death ever put to film. It still creeps me out to this day even after I’ve seen it several times, and it’s definitely one of the biggest takeaways you’ll have from this movie.

How do I say this? Donovan basically “ages” to death. That may not sound like much, but this is what it looks like:

‘Contains tobacco depictions’
What is it with Disney+ and tobacco depictions?

On the plus side, it’s immediately followed by this meme-able moment:

This also leads back to what I said about not being entirely sure what Elsa’s character was supposed to be, because remember she was the one who chose the Grail for Donovan to drink from, and she intentionally chose the wrong one for him. Why did she do that? It’s shown after Donovan shoots Henry that she’s remorseful for both him and Indy, but if I’m being honest it only makes me wish we got a chance to see more of her character in the first place. Not only that, but not long after recovering the Holy Grail we also see how Elsa still tries to take the Holy Grail for herself, so how are we supposed to know if this is in character or not? Anyway, back in the present Indy chooses wisely and saves his father as we all expected him to do, but like I said before, Elsa tries to take the Holy Grail beyond the Temple which the Grail Knight specifically told them not to do because staying in one place for all eternity is God’s ‘price of immortality’. By crossing the great seal on the floor with the Holy Grail, Elsa causes the Temple to collapse and she drops the Grail down a crevasse while Indy comes to her rescue.

Taking some of the issues I had before aside, this is probably one of my favorite scenes in the movie because we see Elsa hanging off the side of the same crevasse but since the Holy Grail is almost within reach she tears one of her hands away from Indy’s grip to try to grab it. Indy can’t hold her with only one hand, but Elsa never offers her other hand which results in Indy losing his grip and her falling to her death. After another tremor while the Temple collapses, Indy falls over the side of the crevasse as well and Henry grabs his arm to pull him back up. Much like Elsa before him though, Indy can almost reach the Grail so he’s too blinded by the potential of immortality to offer his other hand to his father. What snaps him back to reality though is his father calling him ‘Indiana’. Throughout the whole movie, Henry’s only called Indy ‘Junior’, so by suddenly calling him ‘Indiana’ he proves to Indy and the audience that what’s more important to him is not an ancient biblical artifact, but his son. Every time I see this I ‘Awwwww’ so hard and usually rewind it at least once to watch it again because it’s so friggin’ cute!

Indiana comes to his senses and takes his father’s hand, so they all can escape and live to tell this incredible story. Before we leave for real, we have a brief moment where Henry and Indy watch the Grail Knight salute them on their way out of the Temple and have a little discussion about what this experience has meant to them. Henry goes back to calling Indy ‘Junior’ again, but to me that only makes their relationship more believable. The one thing we’ve learned throughout this whole movie is that their relationship needs work, and in real life, one extreme moment like this isn’t enough on its own to create monumental change. If they want to repair this relationship, they’ll need to spend more time with each other and work it out in their own ways over a long period of time. We also find out that Henry calls Indy ‘Junior’ because his real name is Henry Jones Jr. He doesn’t just call him that because he’s his son, that’s literally his name: Junior. Apparently Indy got his chosen name from his favorite childhood pet which we saw momentarily in the Jones home in the flashback at the beginning of the film.

When all is said and done, our characters end up riding away from this crumbling temple on their horses and into the sunset. Of course ‘riding into the sunset’ is a cliche as old as time, but for me it’s really John Williams’ beautiful score that gets so much emotion out of these characters riding away as changed people. Not the Raider’s March which we’ve heard in every movie up until this point and has closed out every film, but rather the Grail theme that plays after it. With this music I really feel a sense of calm and contentment as if I was along for the ride with these characters for this wild adventure, because I kinda was, and we’re all going home together. Not only that, but it’s a great final shot to end on which closes out what’s probably my personal favorite Indiana Jones movie. Not by a whole lot when compared to the other good Indiana Jones movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, but enough.

To me, this movie is doing what I thought Temple of Doom should’ve done. It takes the basic concept set up by the first movie and expands on it. Not only that but it keeps the energy high, the characters relatable with satisfying/believable arcs, and the tone that was set up by the first movie as well. If Raiders of the Lost Ark was the perfect introduction to this series, then this movie should’ve been the perfect ending to this series. Of course it ended up not being the end of the series as I’ll take a look at the worst of these films next week, but that’s next week and I want to enjoy as much of this series being good as I can! I suppose in the end I don’t have much else to say for this movie in particular other than if you’re still looking for a fun movie with memorable action, characters, and moments for your weekend movie night, look no further then Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Given how much fun I had with this movie, I feel like it’s earned itself a rating of 4.5/5 rosary beads. Since I did still have a few problems with the movie kinda like with Raiders I couldn’t give it full marks, but it is still a pretty solid film and it accomplishes its goal well.

Other Indy Reviews

(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)

Skylar Rackley 5/3/24 Skylar Rackley 5/3/24

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

‘Kali Ma Shakti De!’ Come with me this week and have your sanity questioned as we take a closer look at Indiana Jones’ famous/infamous follow-up to the original classic: 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…

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.

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(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)

Skylar Rackley 4/26/24 Skylar Rackley 4/26/24

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark

Dun du-dun dun, dun du-dun! It’s hard to do music in this format, but you know what I’m going for. You know him, you love him, we’re taking a first look at the Indiana Jones franchise this week with Raiders of the Lost Ark!

Disclaimer:

The film I’m reviewing this week is rated PG, but spiritually rated: PG-13

There is adult content and gruesome images included in this review.

Today marks the beginning of something different, I’ve decided to do a series of reviews! With this first review, I’ve decided to take a look at all of the Indiana Jones films in order (not chronological order, but release order). Hopefully this is something y’all will enjoy, because I have a feeling I’ll enjoy it myself. What a way to start as well with one of Harrison Ford’s most iconic characters! Although, if y’all don’t like this idea, by all means let me know in the comments. If y’all (sorry for my Nebraska-ness) are as excited as I am though, prepare yourselves as I spend the next month with this series as I’ll break it down bit-by-bit exploring the highs, the lows, and the mehs of each film.

Out of many classic film sagas, that’s one thing I personally enjoy about this one. It really does run the gamut of quality from great to awful and everything in between. To some that can be something worth studying while to others that just makes it more inconsistent and odd, but one thing you can’t say it isn’t is forgettable. So many people nowadays, and ever since the first film was released, know the name of the leather-clad, fedora hat toting, whiplashing archeologist Indiana Jones and that’s because, for better or for worse, he leaves an impact on all who view his adventures. Without further ado, let’s give this film legend the respect he deserves and pop the lid off that ark to see what’s inside, this is Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark!

To start off, I’m not even going to bother going into detail on what happens in this opening because I’m sure everyone reading this right now already knows it by heart. It’s been parodied and referenced to death, and for very good reason, since this is easily one of the most epic movie introductions ever put to film. Every beat, every line, every shot, and every character is where it needs to be to create what’s honestly a pretty solid short film on its own. What surprised me the most about this opening is that it’s only 13 minutes long, and yet it manages to get us to understand these characters and their situations, why they do what they do, and be invested in its outcome. Outside of that, there is one thing I would like to mention about this opening: nitpicks.

Sure, since we’ve all seen this opening so many times, whether it be from the movie itself or parodied in films like UHF, we’ve all noticed some things about it that just don’t add up logically. Like how this ancient civilization seems to have a surprisingly solid grasp on mechanics and engineering to be able to create highly complex traps for its trespassers including light sensors, pressure plates, and advanced hydraulics. Why didn’t that one guy shoot Indy (get used to me saying played by Harrison Ford) before he had the chance to whip the gun out of his hand? The spiders seem oddly okay with being brushed away by a whip. How come Satipo (played by Alfred Molina) didn’t avoid the light on his way back through the tunnel when he knew passing through it would get him impaled by spikes? Sidenote: Alfred Molina has some real star power to be featured in the opening credits despite having less than 10 minutes of screentime.

Also something that made me laugh: Watching this movie on Disney+ showed that the film was rated PG because it “contains tobacco depictions.”

All those things are ultimately arbitrary because, I will use the same justification I used in my Wreck-It Ralph review, the situations in this movie are meant to enhance the ideas of the story, not the details. Small nitpicks like those ones aren’t movie-breaking since the movie isn’t trying to be flawlessly logical or intricately realistic, it’s meant to be a fun adventure that pushes the envelope of what’s possible in adventure films which is exactly what it does. This does also lead me to another point about this intro which is very much worth mentioning: the point of it in the grand scheme of the film. I’m sorry, I know this review is very top-heavy, but if you have seen this movie I’m sure you know that this intro is worth discussing.

When it comes to the point of this intro in relation to the rest of the movie, it’s technically pointless. It doesn’t really tie into anything else in the movie and if you cut it out and started at the scene of Indy in Barnett College teaching archeology you wouldn’t really miss anything, but it would make the movie worse. Why is this? While yes film scenes should ideally tie into the rest of the narrative, the opening of a movie is also supposed to prepare you for the film you’re about to see. If the movie did start from the scene of Indiana teaching, you may think this movie was instead about a forbidden love between student and teacher on account of that one creepy moment in the classroom with that one student who wrote ‘Love you’ on her eyelids. So when you did get to the point where he gears up to start the hunt for the Ark, you might be surprised at the direction the movie was taking.

By having Indiana Jones be Indiana Jones and hunt for ancient relics in the jungles of South America in the beginning, you know exactly what this movie is going to be about. A mild mannered college professor who teaches archeology by day and by night hunts priceless antiquities with his whip, fedora, and rugged good looks in tow. That’s also what makes the opening of Tim Burton’s Batman so memorable as well for a three act, nearly two hour film. While it’s not nearly as iconic as this film’s opening, it does still work similarly in the sense that you know exactly what you’re in for by showing the Caped Crusader fighting off goons/supposedly killing Johnny Gobbs first and then showing him with his suit off as Bruce Wayne 20 minutes later. It’s all for the sake of making the audience aware of what kind of movie they’re watching.

Okay, with all that out of the way, let’s continue with the story. It’s also here that I realize just how exposition-y this film can be at times. Once we see Indiana Jones back at College, he’s taken aside by his friend Marcus Brody (played by Denholm Elliott) who leads him in the direction of two bureaucrats, one named Major Eaton (played by William Hootkins), and explain to Indy how they intercepted Nazi communications saying they’re in search of the headpiece to the Staff of Ra. Indy being the well-read archeologist he is instantly identifies this as the first step in a series of actions to locate the lost Ark of the Covenant, which means he needs to intercept this find before the Ark falls into filthy Hitler hands. However, there’s one caveat: the last known location of the headpiece was with a long lost mentor of Indiana’s named Abner Ravenwood and his daughter Marion (played by Karen Allen) once had a thing for Indy. Womp-womp.

With that being said, Indiana sets off to find Abner, who was last seen in Nepal, and see if he’d be willing to offer up the headpiece. Unbeknownst to our dear Dr. Jones though is that the character whose name is the most difficult to pronounce, Major Toht (played by Ronald Lacey), is hot on his trail and following him to Nepal so he can find the headpiece and take it before Jones gets it. After being treated to these films’ iconic travelling montages, we see Marion being a strong independent woman in Nepal running her own bar and outdrinking every man who gets in her way. Since we’re on the topic of Marion though, I’d just like to talk about some things with her character that rub me the wrong way.

Don’t get me wrong, unlike some of the other love interests Indiana has throughout the rest of the series, she’s probably the most take-charge and can-do out of all of them. Although, I personally wish they could’ve written the scenes that have her in them better. Karen Allen does a good job in this role and I’m in no way putting this on her performance, it’s just that the movie does its best to build her up as this strong, level-headed person who may even be able to give Indy a run for his money in terms of street smarts, but she ends up having to be saved more times than Willie. WILLIE! That’s just so inherently frustrating to me especially considering that Willie’s character can best be described as what would happen if the screaming goat made a wish on a Zoltar machine to be Meg Ryan.

With that out of the way, the negotiation with Indiana and Marion goes about as swimmingly as you would expect, including how before Indy even finishes his question about where the headpiece is Marion is already winding up to punch him, and ends with Indy leaving and Major Toht following close behind and attempting to torture Marion to give him the headpiece. Of course Jones saves her (Chock that up to a save count of 1) but while in the heat of battle, things literally heat up as the bar catches on fire. Toht sees the headpiece lying on the ground, but when he goes to pick it up it’s gotten too hot from the flames surrounding it and it melts his hand leaving an imprint on it in the process. Since Jones gave Marion $3,000 to give him the headpiece and the money has now burnt up in the fire, after both of them escape the burning wreck Marion decides to tagalong to get her money back.

Finally we arrive at Cairo where we meet Indiana’s long-time friend Sallah (played by John Rhys-Davies) and we go through more unnecessary Marion-in-peril moments. Yeah, we have this long scene of the Nazis trying to slow down Jones’ progress in finding the Ark’s location which really only amounts to Marion getting kidnapped and presumed dead for 15 minutes of screentime, if that. Was it really worth it? One thing I can say is that in this sequence we get the iconic gun scene of Indiana getting challenged by a swordsman only to shoot him instead so I suppose it was kinda worth it. After this we see Indy alone in a bar with his monkey and he gets summoned to his competitor Belloq’s (played by Paul Freeman) location. While it is a pretty neat scene in its own right talking about how both Indy and Belloq are just stark opposites of each other, I would’ve preferred if this could’ve been represented by visual means as opposed to just verbally explaining it. What they’re talking about is interesting, especially how Belloq mentions that everything can become priceless if you bury it in the ground for long enough, but I still think it would’ve been cooler to explore the duality of these two characters differently then just saying it.

After this scene and consulting an old man who’s an expert on the Ark, Sallah and Indy discover how Belloq, along with his Nazi backup lead by Col. Dietrich (played by Wolf Kahler), have been digging in the wrong area to find the Ark’s resting place which they then use as a means to discover the true location for themselves. They end up doing just that which is also when they find out that Marion isn’t dead (big shock), but Jones doesn’t rescue her after discovering her tied up. He realizes in that moment that if he did, all the Nazis in the area would just start looking for her anyway which could make uncovering the Ark more difficult for them. So he opts not to save her and instead goes to dig up the Ark first and come back for her later. True love, am I right?

They dig through the night with their private group of diggers until Sallah and Indiana uncover the Well of the Souls which is also full of snakes.

As you may remember from the opening, Indy “Hates snakes, Jock! I hate ‘em!” But Sallah being the ultra supportive friend that he is decides Indy should face his fears head on by tossing him into the Well first. All the while Belloq and Marion are getting to know each other very well by drinking and laughing with each other until Marion decides to pull a knife on him. He laughs it off at first until she’s caught by Toht and this scene ultimately goes nowhere. They show earlier in the film that the Nazis think Marion might know something since she’s had the headpiece in her possession for so long, but she doesn’t know anything, so what’s the point of these scenes? Toht ends this scene by talking in his usual creepy fashion asking Marion “What shall we talk about?” and that’s where it stops. Nothing ever comes of this.

Meanwhile, back in the part of the story you actually care about, the Ark is finally retrieved after Sallah joins Indy down in the Well and they both lift it into a crate. Before I continue, I want to mention that at this point we’re an hour and 10 minutes into the movie and this is the first glimpse we catch of the Ark which is really beautiful on its own. It’s clearly made out of solid gold (at least in movie terms) and the details on it really make it mesmerizing.

However, before they can leave with the Ark, Belloq and his Nazi crew discover their secret dig since the sun has come out and they steal it from them while also dropping in Marion for good measure. They seal up the Well so they can die, but of course they don’t since Indiana Jones breaks out because he’s Indiana Jones and Marion gets needlessly scared by skeletons because reasons. The Ark is set to be loaded onto a plane and flown to Berlin, but not if Indiana Jones has anything to say about it! They blow up the plane with some fierce resistance from an overly buff shirtless German guy who gets chopped to bits by the plane’s propellers and Belloq and co instead decide to load the Ark onto a truck and take it to Cairo until further notice.

Once again Indiana swings into action with probably some of the best stunt work of the movie as he chases after the procession of German vehicles on a horse and hops onto the Ark truck and overtakes it. It’s a pretty long drawn-out scene, but it’s a lot of fun to watch as Indy runs cars and other various vehicles off the road and even gets shot and thrown out of the truck himself. While not very realistic, Indy gets back into the truck’s cabin by crawling under it while it’s moving, whipping himself back into the trunk and crawling back the same way the Nazis came. Eventually this results in Indiana running Belloq and co off the road and taking the Ark for himself again.

To get themselves to safety, Sallah requests the help of Captain Katanga (played by George Harris) and his crew to help them deliver the Ark. Of course the Nazis end up intercepting their ship on a U-Boat and capturing Marion again while also taking the Ark again, so Indy decides to follow them to wherever they’re taking the Ark while also somehow never being caught on the U-Boat. I mean they’d probably submerge the submarine at some point on their journey to Climax Island, how would Indy have kept up with them on the U-Boat if they batten down their hatches and make it so he can’t get in? Anyway, they make it to the island where Jones disguises himself as a Nazi to get close to the Ark until he reveals himself to the Nazis and threatens to blow up the Ark. Since Indiana Jones is an archeologist at heart, he can’t bring himself to do it, and Belloq called him on his bluff in another pretty good scene showing how these characters are great foils of each other.

This gets Indy captured alongside Marion (Woo, together in bondage!) while the Nazis open the Ark to speak to God as Belloq put it in that earlier scene. At first it seems disappointing as all they find is dust, but soon some supernatural stuff starts poppin’ off so Indy tells Marion to shut her eyes. Some beautiful spirits emerge from the Ark until they turn ugly and start laying waste to these evil Nazi bastards! There’s lots of fire and lightning as each of the Nazis are taken out one by one, but the best deaths are saved for Belloq, Dietrich, and Toht of course. Dietrich gets what I can only assume are his organs sucked out of his body like in the Brendan Fraser Mummy movies, Toht’s face melts off in another of the films most iconic images, and Belloq just straight up blows up.

All’s well that ends well, since the Ark is brought to the states far away from Nazi influence, Indiana Jones goes back home with Marion who’s never mentioned or appears again in the movies until “That Film That Shall not be Named” and we close on how little the US gives a crap about significant cultural relics since the Ark is put in a giant warehouse where it gets swallowed up by the sheer number of other crates in that frickin’ huge warehouse.

All things considered, there are a few things that I have issues with in this movie, but I still think it’s a great watch.

While I did mention previously some of the things I find objectionable about the film such as how they make Marion out to be this badass when she’s really just another damsel in distress and how it can drag in some places, I still think this movie is an adventure classic all these years later. I don’t just mean for me either when it comes to how long it’s been since I’ve seen it last, I also mean in terms of film history. This movie turns 43 years old this year, and it’s just as awesome today as it was when it first came out. If you haven’t seen it yet, I’d imagine you’re probably really confused as to what I meant when I was discussing one of the most epic movie intros ever put to film earlier, but I also recommend you give it a watch for your weekend movie night this week.

As far as how well I’d rate this movie, I’d put it at a 4.5/5 roasting Hitlers. That’s just a good image for anyone of any age.

If you’ve never heard of Indiana Jones before, this is a great start to an uneven yet iconic film saga. Strap on your whips, put on your fedoras, and sit your buns on that couch this weekend to enjoy one of cinema’s greatest heroes.

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