Lazy as all fuck. In Raiders, Indy’s a nonchalant sceptic - “I dunno, it’s the power of God or something.” - yet in this prequel, set a couple of years earlier, he becomes an occult believer. And the Spielberg/Lucas in-joke mutual masturbation - Club Obi Wan, haw haw haw - is just fucking annoying.
I have to agree with the conventional wisdom that this is easily the weakest of the three Indiana Jones movies. What really hurts it is the slow-paced middle third of the film when Indy is in a drugged stupor. Also, compared with Belloq and the Nazis in the first film, the villains weren’t really that interesting and didn’t leave much of an impression on me.
The minecart chase happens in the final third when the pace quickens considerably. If more of the film had been like that, I might’ve liked it a bit more.
And don’t go dissing the optical illusion of the camoflaged bridge in Last Crusade! That made the movie for me. At the very least, you have to admit that was a very cleverly put together scene.
And another gag that really grated: Indy faces the two Indian swordsmen on the bridge, gives this smug little smirk, and reaches for his pistol - haw haw, we all know how this is supposed to play, right? Except we shouldn’t, because the iconic sword vs. revolver fight hasn’t happened yet. Smug and lazy.
More smug and lazy than the
“That’s the ark of the covenant.”
“Are you sure?”
“Pretty sure.”
in-joke in The Last Crusade?
Why wouldn’t Indiana Jones look smug if he thought he had brought a gun to a sword fight? You made it sound like it’s a continuity error.
Nah, it kinda ruined the movie for me. Honestly. An optical illusion like that would only work within a very narrow angle of view. Move just a teensy bit to the left or right (as demonstrated by the camera shot in the movie) and the bridge is clearly visible. Not a very good camoflage, really. And if you were standing right in front of it, even from the correct vantage point, well it would be just about an impossible illusion to pull off. A light coating of dust (and they were in the desert, remember) would be a dead giveaway that the bridge is there.
In a movie series full of highly improbable (and impossible) events, that bridge scene pushed me over the edge and ended my suspension of disbelief. It just seemed stupid to me, not clever at all.
Your mileage obviously varies, but for me The Last Crusade would be a better movie without that scene.
That was during what I now refer to as the “mid-career Spielberg” era when trying to explain such things as Shyamalamadingdong’s current hubris: Spielberg was buying his own press and believed that anything he wanted to sell, we wanted to buy; that nothing he did required any editing or consideration. If a thought crossed his mind, it must by definition be a *worthy * thought. Thus *Hook * and, now with Shyamanananah in the same kind of period in his career, Lady in the Water.
That was a GOOD in joke.
It tookthat long to shatter your suspension of disbelief? I lost it at the very beginning when they jump out of a plane in a life raft and don’t spill out and die. Then the fall to the bottom of a chasm inthe same raft and don’t break their necks when they hit the water. I’m sorry, but they should be dead multiple times from that aerial dismount. And once you lose that Suspension of Disbelief, it’s hard to get it back.
I did like a lot of aspects of the film. As I remarked in my Teemings essay, "Only the Penient Duck Shall Pass**, Indiana Jones steals outrageously and deliberately from Carl Barks’ Scrooge Mcduck, especially from “The Prize if Pzarro”, and plenty of scenes from this film were lifted from there, Especially the water chasing them down the tunnel and blasting across the way.
It killed your suspension of disbelief for two whole movies?
(Tangent was talking about the bridge scene in Last Crusade, not Temple.)
I’ll go with those who liked it better than Last Crusade, which frankly bored the hell out of me. I thought it was fun and mostly entertaining, and had easily the best soundtrack of the three movies. Yeah, Willie was annoying, but if she hadn’t been, why would he have obviously dumped her by Raiders? I mean, he would have for Marion anyway, but what kind of an idot woudn’t have?
Eh, none of them held up great for me, but parts of Temple still work.
good thing indy had screaming girl with him. i would never have stuck my hand in there. in fact i wouldn’t have been in that hallway after the first bug sighting. i would have “eeeepppp” and ran back to the nice room.
the screaming was annoying. very annoying. unbearably annoying.
Yeah, but she had big tits, which balances things out in my book. 
It’s not a movie I’d ever want to see again. But it is in the tradition of lost temple stories that were big in pulp fiction in the '30s and '40s. I never much cared for them either.
In any case, it was lacking the interplay of Ford and Connery, and that made Last Crusade far superior than this piece of cobra dung.
Wow… you’re right. I have the Carl Barks Library and somehow never noticed that.
Well then hopefully this will make you giggle as well it always does me.
All valid criticism… but the movie also contains the “freeing the slave children” sequence, which is the most awesome scene in the history of cinema.
The 2000 year old knight had a broom. Does that make it more believable?
See, this was my problem with the third movie. Connery kicks Ford’s ass throughout the movie. He’s smarter, gets the girl before Indy, is. all in all, simply more of a man. It made Indy look weak.
Also, the plot is recycled from the first movie, the same way Lucas recycled SW in RoTJ. There are also many annoying scenes i Crusade: Father and son tied up together and going around and around in the big fireplace seemed to go on forever.
I actually did spit coffee at that.
Yes, chickie was a pampered showgirl, and yes that does explain her screechy behavior. It just doesn’t excuse the fact that her bat-like screeches never. freaking. stopped. I mean, I liked True Lies right up until the point that Jaime Lee Curtis refused to stop screaming. I’d have dropped her.
Short Round is slightly on the annoying side of the cute/annoying kid margin. Still, he’s not as bad as Banshee.
I have a friend who HATES Last Crusade and thinks Temple of Doom is the best of the bunch. I always argue from the Nazis-are-a-sure-thing perspective, but he hates the perceived overshadowing of Indy by his father in the third movie.
At least we could agree that Raiders was freakin’ awesome.
ETA: Charlie Tan? Boris, that you?
Raiders of the Lost Ark is a credible classic that stands beside Rear Window, The Godfather, Raging Bull, The Seven Samauri, Lawrence of Arabia, et cetera as one of the best films ever made; a pure, perfect action/adventure film. It’s not that the sequels couldn’t hold up to it, but that they (and particularly Temple of Doom) were so disappointing, even in their own right.
Stranger
I’m with those who prefer Temple of Doom to Last Crusade. The first movie is obviously the best (by a wide margin) but Last Crusade just plain doesn’t work, scene after scene after scene.