Indiana Jones: The Sequels

Steven Spielberg and George Lucas's first Indiana Jones collaboration, Raiders of the Lost Ark, is almost unanimously regarded a classic adventure film. Their three sequels (not to mention the very good Young Indiana Jones TV series) have a more mixed reputation. Each has their fans, but also detractors.

In this review, I'll take a look at the first two Indy sequels: Temple of Doom (1984) and The Last Crusade (1989). Despite near-constant TV showings I'd never seen either film the whole way through until now. I caught Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in theaters way back in 2008, and may revisit it for completeness's sake.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)



Temple of Doom is a very unsatisfying sequel. The movie gets a lot of flack for its un-PC portrayal of India, but it has bigger problems: Doom just lacks the flare and excitement of the original. From its dull narrative to the annoying sidekicks, it's a near-complete misfire.

After escaping the clutches of a Shanghai crime lord, Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) ends up in India with nightclub singer Willy Scott (Kate Capshaw) and precocious Chinese kid Short Round (Jonathan Ke Quan) in tow. While on the way to Delhi, Indy and Co. stumble across a village claiming to be victimized by the Thuggee cult. A local ruler (Roshan Seth) scoffs at these claims, but Indy soons finds out the truth: the Thugs are alive and well, operating a mine with child slaves and scheming to convert the entire world to Hinduism.

Temple of Doom gets off to a pitch-perfect start. The early Shanghai scenes are clever (a Mandarin song-and-dance number to Anything Goes) and exciting, and get us in the right frame of mind. Unfortunately, once we reach India the film takes a nosedive. The entire second half takes place in the titular temple and mines, and with no narrative thrust things grow tedious. Spielberg amps up the gore and wild action scenes but it doesn't amount to much excitement; we're just happy that the last 10 minutes takes place outdoors.

Besides lifting the plot and several setpieces wholesale from Gunga Din, Temple of Doom unfortunately appropriates that film's racial and religious politics. There are bloodthirsty Thugs who "kill for the sake of killing," grotesque gags about eating monkey brains, and something as inappropriate as a voodoo doll (!) crops up. An adventure film in 1939 could get away with it; a movie from the era of Gandhi, Heat and Dust and A Passage to India has no excuse. Of course, if Temple were more entertaining we could overlook its political incorrectness.

Harrison Ford has to carry the film himself, and he's more than up to the task. The movie's best gag has Indy preparing to replicate Raiders's "shoot first" scene, only to find he's missing a pistol! Kate Capshaw's whiny damsel in distress is unbearably obnoxious; we definitely miss Karen Allen. Jonathan Ke Quan's Short Round is cute at first but quickly wears out his welcome. Amrish Puri makes a ferocious villain, but Roshan Seth (Gandhi) and Phillip Stone's (The Shining) characters seem to have been left on the cutting room floor.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)



After Temple of Doom's mixed reception, Spielberg and Lucas successfully returned to the original film's template. If The Last Crusade is overly reminiscent of Raiders, it's certainly more dynamic and enjoyable than Temple, not the least from its fun teaming of Harrison Ford and Sean Connery.

A few years after his Ark of the Covenant adventure, Indy is approached by archaeologist Walter Donovan (Julian Glover) to help track down the Holy Grail. Those damned Nazis, this time led by Colonel Vogel (Michael Byrne) and duplicitous Elsa Schneider (Alison Doody), have kidnapped Jones' archaeologist father (Sean Connery), who has a lifelong obsession with the Grail - and a strained relationship with his son. Reteaming with old pals Professor Brody (Denholm Elliot) and Salah (John Rhys-Davies), Indy and Jones Sr. race the Nazis through Venice and the Middle East, where another temple holds the object of their quest.

Crusade takes awhile to get going, with a long and borderline superfluous prologue of a young Indy adventure (featuring River Phoenix). Unlike Temple, however, the film moves, with a variety of locations (Venice, Petra in Jordan) and creative action scenes providing thrills. The slugfest atop a moving tank rivals the original's big chase scene, and the clever puzzles in the finale are properly tense. Indy's testy father-son relationship adds another layer to his character without bogging down the narrative. Raiders comparisons are hard to avoid, with its biblical artifacts, booby trapped temples, carbon-copy villains and similar gross-out effects, but we don't really care. It's better to see familiar ground well-covered than a botched "original" story.

Sean Connery is inspired casting as Indy's dad; he and Ford have great chemistry, and Connery brings a perfect tongue-in-cheek attitude to the role. Denholm Elliot and John Rhys-Davies reprise their roles from Raiders, with Elliot especially getting a lot more to do. Unfortunately, villains Julian Glover (The Young Victoria) and Michael Byrne (A Bridge Too Far) and pale next to Paul Freeman and Wolf Kahler, while Alison Doody's interesting character is underused. Vernon Dobtchef (The Day of the Jackal) has a tiny bit.

I think Steven Spielberg has taken up enough of my time for now, and maybe we can return to more substantial fare soon. Happy New Years to my readers!