Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) Review

Time: 128 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence127
Cast:
Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones
Denholm Elliott as Marcus Brody
Alison Doody as Elsa Schneider
John Rhys-Davies as Sallah
Julian Glover as Walter Donovan
Sean Connery as Henry Jones, Sr.
Director: Steven Spielberg

In 1938, after his father Professor Henry Jones Sr. (Sean Connery), goes missing while pursuing the Holy Grail, Professor Henry “Indiana” Jones Jr. (Harrison Ford) finds himself up against Adolf Hitler’s Nazis again to stop them from obtaining its powers.

The main Indiana Jones trilogy is one of the most iconic cinematic trilogies of all time. After Temple of Doom, Indiana Jones goes back to familiar territory with the third instalment with The Last Crusade, but this leads to possibly the best movie in the entire series (at least close to it). Everything from the writing, direction and the performances are great, it is really entertaining and among my favourite movies.

The movie starts off on a high note with its introduction featuring a young Indiana Jones played by River Phoenix, and it only gets better from there. It keeps you constantly entertained from beginning to end with a great adventure that never has a dull moment. With that said it, it really picks up in such a massive way from the moment that Indiana Jones meets with his father, then it’s pretty much perfect all the way right to the very end. It is also the funniest of the movies by far, with some effective comedy that hits every time, and never gets annoying like how it got to at many points in Temple of Doom. Even the slapstick really ends up being quite funny. The biggest source of comedy in this movie as I’ll get into later is the interactions between Jones and his father. One thing with Raiders of the Lost Ark is that the third act while not bad wasn’t quite as strong as the rest of the movie. The climax of The Last Crusade on the other hand is creative and exciting, and by far the best of the series.

Harrison Ford is effortlessly great in his role of Indiana Jones, as to be expected. He sells every part of the character well, including the action and the comedy. Sean Connery was great as Jones’s father in one of his best performances (possible his best). It’s an unexpected casting considering Connery’s past roles with the likes of James Bond, but he works perfectly in here and was a perfect contrast to Ford. The dynamic and chemistry between these two just works excellently, which is good because they are a big focus of the movie from the first act onwards. The rest of the cast are good, including returning actors from the first movie with Denholm Elliott and John Rhys-Davies, and the main villain played by Julian Glover. It’s also worth noting that River Phoenix plays younger Indiana Jones for less than 10 minutes, but yet he played that part pretty much perfectly in his screentime.

Steven Spielberg’s direction was great, it’s got a very good look throughout at the various locations. There are some great set pieces from start to finish, in great locations. From a boat chase through Venice, to a tank battle with Nazis, all of these set pieces are fantastic, and are even just slightly a step above the action from Raiders of the Lost Ark (and that’s saying a lot). The score by John Williams was great as to be expected, it’s more upbeat and triumphant compared to the other scores in the series, and it’s very memorable.

My favourite Indiana Jones movie jumps between this and Raiders of the Lost Ark, for now I’ll put them on the same level. The direction is great, it is witty and entertaining from beginning to end, Harrison Ford and Sean Connery are excellent, and overall it very well balanced. This and Raiders of the Lost Ark are firmly among my favourite movies, and are definitely worth watching (as is the whole series).

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Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) Review

Time: 118 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence
Cast:
Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones
Kate Capshaw as Willie Scott
Amrish Puri as Mola Ram
Roshan Seth as Chattar Lal
Philip Stone as Captain Philip Blumburtt
Jonathan Ke Quan as Short Round
Director: Steven Spielberg

In 1935, Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) arrives in India, still part of the British Empire, and is asked to find a mystical stone. He then stumbles upon a secret cult committing enslavement and human sacrifices in the catacombs of an ancient palace.

Raiders of the Lost Ark released back in 1981 had made a big impact on pop culture and cinema as a whole, and it made Indiana Jones a household name. The first and third movies are my favourites of the series by far, while Temple of Doom has always been a little weird to me. Even when I was younger,, there were some parts I really wasn’t sure about despite me liking this movie. Re-watching it again, I feel pretty much feel the same and have a ton of issues, but at the same time there’s a lot of good parts to it.

From the very beginning you can tell that this is a very different movie to Raiders of the Lost Ark, and indeed it is different from the other movies. First of all, it is noticeably darker on many levels. People who know me know that I really like darker movies, however the way things are handled here wasn’t exactly the best. I’m not one to get overreactive over dark this movie should or shouldn’t be, nor would I complain about it probably not suitable for children or anything. At the very least though, the way it seems like the movie is trying to be more reactive and edgy than actually organic for the story when it comes to these darker aspects. Child slavery, pulling hearts out of chests, and even the attempts at gross out elements at certain points with bugs feels like it’s trying way too hard to get a reaction. However the problem is not just that, Temple of Doom is also quite an annoying movie, and it takes quite a lot for me to be annoyed with a movie, especially with an Indiana Jones film. Whether it be Kate Capshaw’s character, some certain silliness with the plot, and the humour, which to be blunt was mostly dumb and annoying. Because of this, this just makes it hard for me to get invested in the movie. However even if you just look at it on a plot level, it just wasn’t very interesting, and honestly it was rather weak. Jones happening to come across this poor village and needing to retrieve a sacred stone to restore things for them, and that’s it. And now the topic I’ve been avoiding for a bit, the racism. I’m not going to go too much into it given that so much has already been said about it, except that there’s quite a lot of it in this movie, and it’s pretty hard to look past it. I will say this about the movie, as it approaches the climax in the third act it does get better and much more entertaining, even with its more annoying and silly aspects.

Harrison Ford has still very much got it when it comes to the role of Indiana Jones, and plays his role very well as to be expected. However it’s worth noting that given all of the movie’s issues (and there are many), Ford manages to carry the movie throughout. Kate Capshaw plays the love interest in Willie Scott. I haven’t really seen Capshaw in anything and I don’t blame her for her performance here, because the character is beyond terrible and annoying on so many levels. Willie screams a lot, has to be rescued a lot, and basically does nothing throughout the movie save for like two times. I get that she’s meant to be in contrast to Marion in Raiders of the Lost Ark, but they really overdid it, and she’s absolutely insufferable from beginning to end. It doesn’t help that she’s basically a tag along, she has absolutely no reason to be there (compared to Marion in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Irina in The Last Crusade), and Indy could’ve even ditched her way earlier in the movie (no idea why he kept her around to begin with). Even Capshaw said found the character to be nothing more than a “dumb screaming blonde and a damsel in distress”. Honestly when I think of the movie she is one of the first things I think of, and that’s not a good thing. There’s also the character of Short Round played by Jonathan Ke Quan, who can honestly be quite annoying at points, but compared to Willie wasn’t so bad (and he actually did some things at points). The villain of the movie is Amrish Puri as Mola Ram, a cult leader basically. He’s alright enough as an antagonist but outside of him being different from the other Indiana Jones villains and him pulling hearts out of peoples’ chests, I don’t think is very memorable.

Despite some very questionable stylistic and directing choices that don’t work all that well, generally the direction by Steven Spielberg is good. On a technical level it is great, from the production design, the costumes, the effects, the way it is shot all of it is done rather well. As I said the 3rd act is where the movie really picks up, and a big part of that is the action. There are some quite effective action sequences, the stunt work is impressive, and there are some effective and tense moments. Indiana Jones has never been known as a realistic series, and when it comes to plausibility it’s as silly as you’d expect it to be. The only bit that really stuck out as being particularly dumb was one of which was a scene early on that involves falling out of a plane. John Williams’s score is great as usual, and has some very memorable themes.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a bit of an odd movie. It has its strong moments for sure, much of the direction from Spielberg is still good, and of course Harrison Ford is great as Indiana Jones. However it had some issues, so many parts of it were really annoying when it came to the plot, characters and humour, the story just didn’t interest me all that much, and of course it had the racism and sexism. With all that said, all of the Indiana Jones movies are certainly worth watching and that extends to Temple of Doom.

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Time: 115 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence
Cast:
Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones
Karen Allen as Marion Ravenwood
Paul Freeman as Rene Belloq
Ronald Lacey as Major Arnold Toht
John Rhys-Davies as Sallah
Denholm Elliot as Satipo
Director: Steven Spielberg

Archaeologist professor Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) is hired to find the Ark of the Covenant when two agents from US Army intelligence tell him of Nazi German activities in archaeology, including a gigantic excavation site in Egypt – a site that an intercepted cable indicates to Indy is the location of the, the powerful chest bearing the Ten Commandments, that the Nazis can use to obliterate any enemy.

Every adventure movie ever made owes it to this movie. With great characters, a sense of adventure, many thrills and well filmed action scenes; it is easy to see it reflected in many adventure movies released after it. It held up 33 years ago and it holds up today, as it continues to entertain today.

This film always has something entertaining going on and always has your curiosity and attention. The reason why it is so loved was because as a film, it gets everything right. For a simple premise, the film takes advantage of it and really makes it as entertaining as possible. The film also has many genres combined into it: action, adventure, romance, comedy, fantasy – and all of these genres are extremely well balanced. There aren’t that many flaws with this movie (despite Indy near the end of the movie knowing what to do despite not learning about it prior to the event), and most of the time you don’t even notice them as you are wrapped up in the adventure.

Indiana Jones is now an iconic character thanks to Harrison Ford’s performance. He doesn’t just rehash his performance from Star Wars as Han Solo; he really brings this character to life. He is like John McClane from Die Hard; he felt relatable and vulnerable like other human beings who seemed like he could die at any moment, where a lot of action characters are always capable. Karen Allen also does a good job at being Marion Ravenwood who is Indy’s love interest throughout the movie. One of the best things about her is that unlike most female characters in action movies (who usually spend most of their time being rescued from danger), she can hold her own and handle herself in any situation All the other side characters that are in this movie are memorable, especially Davies, Elliott and Lacey who are effective as the antagonists in the movie.

The action scenes in this movie are done incredibly well. The film is also perfectly edited, as is the cinematography shot. I know it goes without saying but the stunt work is incredible; there are a lot of them, unlike most movies of today which often use CGI for the big action scenes. That chase scene in the last act with the horses stands out most to me whenever I think about this movie; it so well shot and overall is the best car chase scene I’ve seen in a movie. The set pieces for each location are designed very well. Also the film uses a lot of practical effects that actually feel real, a perfect example is the boulder near the beginning of the movie. John William’s score is a triumph all the way through; it fits so well with the action scenes, the discovery scenes and many others.

This film is a fun adventure, simple as that. It takes you on a ride. The film balances the action scenes, dialogue and mystery moments. If for some strange reason you haven’t seen this movie, see it now and see what you have been missing out on for years. Raiders of the Lost Ark are a special movie to action films and to films in general. Steven Spielberg perfectly captured the adventurous spirit with this movie.