Review: Indiana Jones Series

The character of Indiana Jones is one that many of us remember fondly from our childhood years.  Raiders of the Lost Ark began the adventure and it would prove popular enough (and wildly successful enough) to keep going for many years in both film and television formats, even prompting a return to the franchise some 20 years past the end of the original trilogy.  Here I present a breakdown of the four films along with some rather harsh criticism that may very well earn me the ire of the series’ fans.  I watched them as a child, I watched them as an adult and I can safely say that these films are not as amazing as our memories tell us they were.

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

The first of the franchise, Raiders of the Lost Ark was truly a great action film that holds up over time.  It starts off with our hero, Indiana Jones, as he makes his way to a mysterious cave in search of lost treasure.  This would begin the theme of the film, bringing into focus the treasure hunter that is Jones and his seemingly endless struggles against those who would steal archaeological artifacts for their own gain.

As the movie progresses, we are introduced to an old love interest of Jones, Marion.  She has the key that will help Jones find what he is looking for - the mythical lost Ark of the Covenant.  The pair moves from Nepal to Cairo, fighting Nazis and trying to outsmart Belloq, a long-time rival of Jones.  Along the way, we get fist fights, gun fights, chase scenes and all the stuff that makes an action flick worth watching.

This film was so great for a few key reasons.  First of all, it was unlike anything we’d seen before.  We get to see a treasure hunter having adventures and battling the bad guys that everyone loves to hate - Nazis.  He not only fights, but outsmarts his opponents at every turn.  He doesn’t always obtain victory, but is forced to go back and forth, trying to secure the Ark but losing in this battle against Belloq again and again.  The actors each perform their roles superbly, whether they be main or secondary characters.  And it’s all done with a rustic-looking cinematography that makes it feel somewhat like a period piece.  Raiders of the Lost Ark was an instant adventure classic.

The biggest issue I have with Raiders is the editing.  When you’ve seen it so many times, you begin to realize exactly how bad some of it is.  Admittedly, the films that follow display a much lazier approach to this crucial film process, so I guess the first can be forgiven somewhat.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

This time around, the movie starts up with Jones trying to make a deal and secure a valuable diamond.  Of course, things don’t go as planned and the requisite shoot-out and chase scene follows.  In the company of Jones this time around are a Chinese kid who goes by the nickname Short Round and a very annoying woman named Willie Scott (played by a seemingly talentless Kate Capshaw).  Contrary to what one might think, the kid is not the comic relief, that role being taken by Willie, whose speaking role in the film is almost exclusively limited to bad jokes and screaming.

After an unexpected plane crash, the three end up in India.  There, they encounter a village that has had a sacred stone stolen by evil people living nearby.  Jones and company set out to fight said evil bad guys and discover a revival of the long-gone and very dangerous Thuggee cult.  People’s hearts get pulled out, children are enslaved and giant piles of bugs show up for no reason.

Upon rewatching this film I was somewhat surprised to realize that there is almost no plot and literally no backstory.  A brief, 10-minute set-up provides everything you need to know and then the movie jumps from action scene to action scene.  Character development is pretty much nil and the bad guy, Mola Ram, is only memorable because he wears a silly, evil hat.  If this film hadn't starred Harrison Ford or been attached to the Indiana Jones franchise, it would have hit the 99-cent barrel at Walmart long ago.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) 

Whoever was responsible for the atrocity that was Temple of Doom must have been fired before Last Crusade was made, because the improvement is obvious from the get-go.  We still have the inexplicable piles of vermin (this time rats), crazy stunts that defy the laws of physics and some corny one-liners, but at least this flick has a story to it.

As usual, it begins with a small action scene that sets the stage for what the movie will become.  Enter one Indiana Jones as a teenager, trying to stop some “archaeologists” from stealing an artifact for profit.  He fails, of course, which leads us to later, with Jones tracking down the artifact once more and this time retrieving it.  The set-up has little to do with the artifact, however, and more to do with introducing our hero’s father, played by the venerable Sean Connery.

As it turns out, Jones’s dad has gone missing while trying to finish the last bits of his quest to hunt down the location of the Holy Grail.  Indy must then go searching for him, at the same time trying to complete the puzzle that dad started.  The main enemy is once again the loveable Nazis, this time led by a treasure hunter who quests after the grail to gain immortality.  Chases on pretty much every type of craft soon follow (including boats, motorcycles, planes, cars and tanks).  The good guys and the bad guys both make it to the Grail and the final conflict ensues.

This one returns to what made Raiders so fun to watch.  There is action, but there is also a story involved so that the audience doesn’t just feel like the film is jumping from one chase to the next.  Connery does a great job with his role and every character is at least somewhat believable.  There are still a plethora of editing errors (sorry, my pet peeve), but the end product makes it worth the watch.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) 

This is the film that people seem to have such a huge problem with, but honestly, it wasn’t that bad when put into perspective with the other films.  If you look at any of the other films (aside from perhaps the first) and think about what they would look like if made in the modern era - adding in some CGI effects, an old and worn-out Harrison Ford and the crisp camerawork that we use today - you begin to realize that they might very well turn into the same mess that this one did.

If you haven’t seen it, this installment brings Jones back, along with Raiders girl Marion and adds in a third in the form of the pair’s son Mutt (played by the always annoying Shia LaBeouf).  The group set out to find the origin of a crystal skull (hence the title), have adventures along the way and eventually discover that there are indeed aliens in the world.

The ridiculous nature of some of the events in Crystal Skull mimics closely the other films, albeit the CGI turns them from campy into outright silly.  There is plenty more plot development than in Temple of Doom though perhaps less goofy slapstick than that episode.  But no matter the movie, it never held up to the memories that people had of the original three, thus making it out to be much worse than it really is.  Still, Crystal Skull was a bust and a sad, sad end to the franchise.  Feel free to read a mountain of other reasons that people didn't like over at rottentomatoes.com, so that I don’t have to list them all individually here.

My final judgment - the first film is a must-watch, but the others could be left alone unless you’re hooked on Raiders.  In that case, go ahead and watch them all and decide for yourself if Crystal Skull really fell so far off the graph as to earn the hatred that it did.

Whip and Hat courtesy of Gary2880 via Wikicommons

Raiders poster courtesy of movies.wikia.com

Crystal Skull poster courtesy of en.wikipedia.org