In 1936, archaeologist and adventurer Indiana Jones is hired by the U.S. government to find the Ark of the Covenant before Adolf Hitler’s Nazis can obtain its awesome powers.
When Paramount sent me this 4-Movie Collection, I was beyond excited. The Indiana Jones series is my favorite franchise but “Raiders of the Lost Ark” is my all-time favorite film. Before I continue with my review of the movie, I need to go back to June of 1981. Living in Dublin, Ireland, with my mother and younger sister, my mother took us out one rainy Sunday afternoon to see “Superman II” but the showing was sold out so she decided to take us to see a new film called “Raiders of the Lost Ark” instead. Naturally, I didn’t want to see anything other than Superman but we ended up at the Carlton Cinema on O’Connell Street in Dublin nonetheless. I was a grumpy and angry nine-year-old because I so badly wanted to see the new Superman flick but once “Raiders” began, and the big boulder chased Indy out of the booby-trapped Peruvian temple, I was hooked.
A few years earlier, my father walked out on my mother and my sister and me so I grew up with no proper father figure in my life but when I was introduced to Indiana Jones on that fateful rainy day in Dublin, Indy became my surrogate father. Whenever I was afraid, I would think of Indy and I would be okay, and the reason he appealed to me even more than Superman, was because of his very human, and flawed qualities. If he was punched, he hurt. If he was shot, he bled. If someone betrayed him, he felt pain. He was very relatable and that, to me, is why Indy will always be more than just a fictional character, he is the embodiment of what I would have wanted in a real father, someone who would have stuck around, even when the going got tough. And as I got older, I also began to admire Harrison Ford because, in real life, he exhibited much of Indy’s mannerisms and characteristics (or maybe the other way around) and he was a good person who cared for his family and that is why he will always be my favorite actor of all time.
“Raiders of the Lost Ark” takes place in 1936 and follows the exploits of Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford), an archaeologist and teacher who travels all over the world, gathering ancient relics from past cultures and civilizations. He and his best friend Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott), the Dean of Students at Marshall College in Bedford, Connecticut, where both men teach, are contacted by two Army Intelligence agents and informed of an excavation that is happening in the Egyptian city of Tanis. When they learn that Hitler is responsible for the dig, Indy immediately knows what they are searching for: the lost Ark of the Covenant. Unfamiliar with Indy’s proclamation, he tells the agents that according to the Bible, the Ark was a gold-covered wooden chest that was carried by the Israelites and that it allegedly contained the two stone tablets of the Ten Commandments. He continues to tell them that any army that carries the Ark before it, is invincible because it purportedly contains the power of God.
Shortly thereafter, Marcus informs Indy that the US Military has given him the go-ahead to travel to Cairo to recover the Ark before the Nazis do. In order to achieve his goal, he must travel to Nepal to visit an old flame, Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), who owns a medallion that could help locate the exact coordinates of the Ark. After a fight with some decidedly nasty Germans, Indy and Marion head to Cairo where they meet Indy’s friend Sallah (John Rhys-Davies), who is able to give them all the information they need on the Nazis’ excavation. Utilizing the medallion, Indy determines exactly where the Ark is and now he, Marion, and Sallah must move quickly if they are to retrieve the Ark and escape without being discovered.
Indiana Jones was created by George Lucas, who said he grew up watching and loving the old action-packed matinée serials of the 1930s. When he and friend Steven Spielberg were in Hawaii in 1977, they were both taking some well-deserved time off, each awaiting the opening day results of their latest films, “Star Wars: A New Hope” and “Close Encounters of the Third Kind.” Suffice it to say, both movies did very well for themselves. Spielberg confided in Lucas that he always wanted to direct a James Bond film but Lucas told him he had an idea for an action-adventure series that centered on a daredevil archaeologist who travels the world searching for mythological artifacts. The more he told Spielberg about it, the more enthralled he became and both men agreed to make three films in which Lucas would produce and Spielberg would direct.
“Raiders” was the biggest hit of 1981, surpassing “Superman II,” “Stripes,” “The Cannonball Run,” and “For Your Eyes Only.” It cemented Harrison Ford as the ultimate action hero and he went on to play the iconic swashbuckling archaeologist three more times, with a fifth Indy movie now in production. As I stated earlier, “Raiders” became my all-time favorite film that rainy day in 1981, and it has remained so to this day, with no other movie coming close. While I enjoyed “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade,” they never quite managed to capture the same level of excitement and elation that “Raiders” delivered, and the less we say about “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” the better. In this critic’s eyes, it doesn’t exist.
Spielberg, Lucas, and Ford were all in top form, and John Williams’ iconic music went on to be nominated for Best Original Score in the 1982 Academy Awards. The opening scene is among the very best of any action-adventure film ever made and the truck chase still elicits excitement and astonishment and considering that every scene, with the exception of the ghosts coming out of the Ark in the finale, was filmed for real, it takes you back to a time when good old-fashioned filmmaking was truly appreciated, with absolutely no reliance on CGI or special effects. The stars aligned when “Raiders” was made, everything about it, the acting, direction, costume design, music, cinematography, and editing, were all absolutely flawless and it is the only movie that can still entertain and excite this critic, 40 years later. “Masterpiece” is truly an understatement.
In 1935, Indiana Jones 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.
Around 1983, word came out that a new Indiana Jones film would be released in 1984, and my eleven-year-old self and all my friends were convinced that someone snuck into the warehouse that the Ark was stored in at the end of “Raiders,” and took off with it and that Indy would have to chase after them to get it back. The stories we came up with were fantastic, so you can imagine my disappointment when the film was released, only for it to have nothing to do with the Ark and Nazis. But once the opening scene in Club Obi-Wan began, I was immediately awestruck to see Indy in action again.
This time around, the story takes place in 1935, a year before the events of “Raiders” and finds Indy, his young Chinese sidekick Short Round (Jonathan Luke Ke Huy Quan), and a nightclub singer named Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw) escape from the aforementioned Club Obi-Wan, owned by Lao Che (Roy Chiao), a ruthless crime boss from Shanghai who double-crosses Indy after he does a job for him. The trio manages to escape on a cargo aircraft that just happens to be owned by Lao Che and once air-bound, our three protagonists are sleeping, believing to be on their way to Delhi when the two pilots dump the plane’s fuel and escape via parachute. After utilizing an inflatable raft to jump out of the plane before it crashes, it lands on the Himalayan mountains below, only for them to end up in a raging river, ultimately arriving at the village of Mayapore in northern India.
Once there, they are told by the village elders that Shivalinga, a sacred stone that sits on a shrine that protects the village, was taken by evil Thugees from the nearby Pankot Palace, along with all of the village children. They also claim that the Thugees worship Kali, the Hindu goddess of death, by offering human sacrifices. The village elders ask Indy to travel to Pankot Palace to recover their children and Shivalinga and Indy obliges, who is secretly more interested in retrieving the stone as he believes it to be one of the five Sankara stones given by the gods to help humanity fight evil, and which could make him very wealthy.
Once at Pankot, they are welcomed by Chattar Lal (Roshan Seth), the Prime Minister of the Maharaja of Pankot, and invited to dinner that evening where they are given the opportunity to meet the palace’s young Maharaja (Raj Singh). When Indy presses Chattar Lal about the Thugee cult, stating that they came from a small village who claimed that their children were stolen, along with their sacred stone, Lal laughs at them, claiming that the Thugee cult died out many years ago and is no longer in existence. When they retire to their room for the evening, Indy is attacked by a Thugee guard but gets the upper hand and kills him first. Indy and Short Round then discover a series of tunnels that takes the trio to a large underground temple where they witness the Thugees sacrificing a man to a large statue of Kali, led by the sadistic high priest, Mola Ram (Amrish Puri). Indy quickly realizes that the sacred stone taken from the village was indeed one of the five Sankara stones and that the children were kidnapped so they could help Mola Ram search for the remaining stones. Now Indy must make a decision: save the children and return them and the stone to the village, or seek out fortune and glory, by stealing the stone and keeping it for himself.
Upon its initial release, “Temple of Doom” was welcomed by the fans but panned by critics as being too dark and violent. As a result, “Temple of Doom” and “Gremlins,” which was produced by Spielberg, were the deciding factors in the creation of a new rating, one that fell between PG and R-rated films. The new rating, PG-13, was established with the advisory, “Parents Strongly Cautioned – Some Material May Be Inappropriate for Children Under 13.” In 1985, John Milius’ “Red Dawn” was the first film to receive the rating.
“Temple of Doom” wasn’t as popular, at the time, as “Raiders” because of the dark overtones, human sacrifice, and child slavery but over the years, many of the fans who were initially not as fond of the movie, now appreciate it more for the fact that it wasn’t simply a rehash of “Raiders” but a completely new story with Indy being the only recurring character from the first film. Yes, it was dark, yes, it was scary, but it dared to be as far removed from its predecessor as it possibly could and props have to go to Spielberg and Lucas for doing so. In fact, years later, both Spielberg and Lucas claimed that “Temple of Doom” was dark because both men were going through divorces in their personal lives. Spielberg would go on to say that “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” was his apology to the world for “Temple of Doom” and said that it was his least favorite of the trilogy, stating that the greatest thing that he got out of making the movie was that he met Kate Capshaw and that they married years later.
I think Spielberg’s apology remark for “Temple of Doom” was off-target because while he may not remember it fondly, millions of fans do, and with each passing year, “Temple of Doom” gathers more and more supporters who realize that it is, in fact, a worthy follow-up (technically a prequel) to “Raiders.” The last half of the movie, including the mine car chase and the fight on the rope bridge, have to be some of the most exciting images ever put on film and not many people know that the mine car sequence was taken from the original script for “Raiders.” After Belloq, Toht, and Dietrich have met their demise after opening the Ark, Indy and Marion then have to escape the island from the remaining Nazis and they put the Ark in a mine car and the soldiers give chase. It’s a good thing they deleted that scene from “Raiders” as it wouldn’t have fit with the overall tone of that movie. “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” is a fast-paced, relentless, non-stop action-adventure and Harrison Ford is in perfect form as the titular hero. It would be five years before the world would receive another Indy adventure but it was definitely worth the wait.
In 1938, after his father Professor Henry Jones, Sr. goes missing while pursuing the Holy Grail, Professor Henry “Indiana” Jones, Jr. finds himself up against Adolf Hitler’s Nazis again to stop them from obtaining its powers.
I remember the summer of 1989 as one of the best summers for big Hollywood movies. It was the first time I went to the theater multiple times to see so many incredible, action-packed films. That summer there was “Batman,” “Lethal Weapon 2,” “Honey, I Shrunk the Kids,” “Ghostbusters II,” “The Abyss,” “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier,” “License to Kill,” and finally, “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.” After the negative critical response to “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” Spielberg announced that the next Indy movie would be his apology for “Doom” and he stayed true to his word when “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” was released that summer. It returned audiences to the ambiance and overall atmosphere that made “Raiders” so successful, even bringing Marcus Brody and Sallah back into the fold but the crowning achievement was casting Sean Connery as Indy’s dad, even though Connery was only 12 years old than Ford at the time. It worked, and the strained relationship between father and son is what helped advance “Crusade” to its enormous success.
This time around, Indy is tasked with retrieving the Holy Grail, the cup that Jesus Christ drank from at the Last Supper. After an exciting opening that takes place in 1912 and introduces a 13-year-old Indy, played by the late River Phoenix, we then cut to 1938 where he gets word that his estranged father, Henry Jones, Sr. (Connery), was searching for the Holy Grail in Venice, Italy, but has since disappeared. Walter Donovan (Julian Glover), a wealthy American industrialist who was financing the expedition, reaches out to Indy and offers him the opportunity to continue Henry’s work in the hopes of finding his father and the Holy Grail. Indy agrees and both he and his friend Marcus (Denholm Elliott) travel to Venice together where they meet the beautiful Elsa Schneider (Alison Doody), a colleague of Donovan’s who was helping Henry.
When Indy and Elsa discover a half-flooded catacomb under the library where she and Henry were working, they unearth a clue that gives them the location of the Grail but are then quickly chased by the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword, a secret society whose mission is to protect the Grail. After escaping, Indy, Marcus, and Elsa return to their apartment, only to discover it has been ransacked. Indy surmises that they were looking for the Grail Diary, which he has in his possession, his dad’s personal journal filled with notes, sketches, and maps from his many years of searching for the Holy Grail. Elsa feels betrayed that he never shared the information with her about the diary but they quickly move on and end up in each other’s arms.
Indy learns that his father is being held at Castle Brunwald on the Austrian-German border and tells Marcus to head to İskenderun to meet Sallah (John Rhys-Davies) and after rescuing his dad, they will join them where they will search for the Grail themselves. Indy and Elsa make their way to the castle, where he finds his dad but they are quickly apprehended by the Nazis and brutal SS Colonel Ernst Vogel (Michael Byrne) and tied up. Much to Indy’s shock and dismay, he realizes that both Elsa and Donovan are aiding the Nazis in the search for the Grail. When Henry causes an accidental fire, it gives father and son the opportunity to escape the castle and after an exciting motorcycle chase, they arrive in İskenderun where Sallah informs them that the Nazis kidnapped Marcus and are holding him in a tank. When the Brotherhood of the Cruciform Sword begins to attack the Nazis, Henry is captured and placed in the same tank as Marcus but Indy gives chase and succeeds in rescuing both men. With the final resting place of the Holy Grail located in the Canyon of the Crescent Moon, Indy, Henry, Sallah, and Marcus set out for the temple in the hopes of reaching it before the Nazis do.
While “Last Crusade” was more lighthearted and nowhere near as dark and sinister as “Temple of Doom,” it failed to live up to expectations by many, including yours truly because it seemed more interested in imitating “Raiders” rather than trying to create its own individual identity. You could play “Raiders” and “Last Crusade” side by side and both films would practically be identical in overall story narrative. The other aspect that Spielberg and Lucas miscalculated, was in bringing back the characters of Marcus Brody and Sallah, who made their debut in “Raiders.” Don’t misunderstand me, I loved both characters in “Raiders,” Marcus was a father figure to the younger Indy and took the world of archaeology seriously, especially when it came to searching for the Ark of the Covenant and the dangers associated with it, and Sallah was Indy’s loyal friend who was always by his side and like Marcus, was no-nonsense in regards to whatever mission Indy was working on. In “Last Crusade,” they are both re-introduced as bumbling idiots who only serve as comic relief instead of the earnest and thoughtful characters they were in “Raiders.”
This facet really annoyed me as Marcus was reduced to playing a blundering and inept caricature of his former self, and while Sallah was nowhere near as incompetent, he had his moments. Had Spielberg and Lucas brought back the same characters from “Raiders,” “Last Crusade” would have gotten a far higher rating. Those gripes aside, the film works mainly because of the strained relationship between Indy and his father. Instead of just another adventure where Indy saves the day, adding the emotional depth of having to rescue his father and then having to commit himself to his safety, infused the movie with a much-needed character arc for Indy as we see him and his father’s labored relationship finally develop into something much deeper and more gratifying, for both men.
During its release in 1989, Spielberg, Lucas, and Ford stated that “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” would be Indy’s swan song, with Spielberg even stating that the final shot of Indy, Henry, Marcus, and Sallah riding off into the sunset, was composed specifically by him as the definitive final shot that would bring the series to a close. Sadly, this was not the case and in 2008, the world was subjected to the abomination known as “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.” Sigh.
In 1957, archaeologist and adventurer Indiana Jones is called back into action and becomes entangled in a Soviet plot to uncover the secret behind mysterious artifacts known as the Crystal Skulls.
Yep, you read that rating correctly, half a star. It’s so sad that between Spielberg, Lucas, and Ford, they could churn out such a floundering, laughable, and unintelligent piece of garbage such as this. Let me give you a breakdown of how many times I saw each Indy film in theaters. In 1981, I saw “Raiders” 42 times, in 1984, “Temple of Doom” 25 times, in 1989, “Last Crusade” 19 times, and in 2008, I saw “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” twice. And that was two times too many. The majority of the blame lies with Lucas. I had no problem with the Russians being the bad guys since the film takes place in 1957 and during that decade, Russia was indeed a big threat to America with both nations locked in the long, tense conflict, the Cold War. That wasn’t the problem, the issue was that Lucas felt it was totally acceptable to introduce aliens (or Interdimensional beings as they are referred to in the film) to a series that was pretty much grounded in practical reality. At least within the confines of each movie. Granted, every film in the original trilogy had occasional moments of fantastic escapism but it was more of a wink and a nod to the audience than implausible circumstance.
In “Crystal Skull,” Indy survives an atomic blast by hiding in a lead-lined refrigerator in a model town right before an atomic bomb test. It sends the fridge miles through the air, only for it to come crashing down on the ground, toppling repeatedly for hundreds of yards before landing firmly in place. Then Indy gets out and stands up, right next to the mushroom cloud, and survives. It is an absolutely ludicrous scene that feels out of place, even in an Indy movie. The fact that Spielberg and Lucas would allow such an outrageous spectacle to be included, shows just how out of touch both men had become in the years since “Last Crusade.” Had they kept the story more in tune with the original trilogy, the fans might have been more accepting. Another major aspect that was considered inexcusable by the fans and many critics, was the inclusion of aliens and flying saucers. The Ark of the Covenant, the Sankara Stones, and the Holy Grail were mythical objects entrenched throughout time, appearing in the Bible and history books, therefore, audiences felt that they were attainable because evidence left behind offered clues as to their whereabouts, making Indy’s pursuit of them more authentic. In “Crystal Skull,” Indy deals with something that is literally and figuratively otherworldly, and as a result, it feels totally out of place in the Indy universe. This is supposed to be an action-adventure film, not “The X-Files.”
When Indy and his partner Mac (Ray Winstone) are captured by Russian soldiers in Mexico and brought to Hangar 51 in the Nevada desert, they are introduced to Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett), a villainous Soviet agent and also a psychic who has desires on finding telepathic crystal skulls with ties to an alien life form that holds great psychic power. Her plan is to brainwash and manipulate the minds of American forces, giving the Soviets a tactical advantage in the Cold War. Indy is forced to track down a crate containing a mummified corpse from the Roswell UFO incident where a supposed United States Army Air Forces balloon crashed in July of 1947. Upon opening the crate, which reveals the body of a dead alien, Indy gets the upper hand on the Russians by disarming a soldier and grabbing his gun, and pointing it at Spalko. At this point, Mac reveals himself to be a double agent and working on the side of the Russians. Indy causes a distraction by dropping the gun which fires off a round, hitting a soldier in the foot, giving him the chance to escape. He tries to steal the alien crate but is unsuccessful as he becomes embroiled in a fight with Spalko’s henchman Dovchenko (Igor Jijikine).
During the scuffle, Indy knocks Dovchenko into a control room where he lands on a panel, inadvertently starting a 30-second countdown on a digital clock. They end up on a rocket sled with a jet engine crudely bolted onto the deck of the flat car. When the clock reaches zero, the engine roars to life, sending both men down the railroad tracks at supersonic speed. At the other end, Dovchenko has passed out from the rapid acceleration, giving Indy time to escape before the rest of the Russians come looking for him. He ends up in a model town just as an atomic bomb is about to be tested. He manages to climb into a lead-lined refrigerator and survives the explosion when FBI agents eventually rescue, decontaminate, and interrogate him. He tells them that he was unaware that Mac was working with the Russians but they don’t believe him and he is put on an indefinite leave of absence from Marshall College. Greaser Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf) approaches Indy, informing him that Jones’ former colleague, Professor Harold Oxley (John Hurt), who is also a friend of Mutt and his mother, found a crystal skull in Peru but has since disappeared, feared kidnapped along with Mutt’s mother, Marion, who went searching after him.
Mutt gives Indy a letter from Oxley, a riddle in an ancient language that takes both men to Peru. As Indy tries to decipher Ox’s letter, they are captured by the Russians and brought to a camp in the Amazon jungle where they are reunited with Ox and Mutt’s mother Marion, who is actually Indy’s old flame Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen). She eventually tells him that Mutt is his son, much to Indy’s surprise. On the road to Akator, where the crystal skulls are reported to be, Indy, Mutt, Marion, and Ox escape the clutches of the Russians and realize that they must get to Akator before Spalko and her men do, otherwise, the fate of the U.S. will lie in the hands of Spalko and her psychic abilities.
“Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” is absolutely horrendous. Harrison Ford, who at least appears to be having fun returning to the role that made him a household name, is the only redeeming aspect. The film utilizes an overabundance of CGI and one of the movie’s lowlights is Mutt swinging through the jungle on vines, accompanied by monkeys who can differentiate between the good guys and the bad guys. There is also a juvenile scene where Mutt and Spalko fence off against each other with swords as they ride atop two jungle cars side by side, with Mutt getting whacked in the groin by passing bushes and shrubs, akin to a Saturday morning cartoon. There are more scenes comparable to these but I am not going to mention them as I feel utterly embarrassed in doing so. I fail to recognize “Crystal Skull” as Indy 4, instead, I like to imagine it is a dream Indy has one night while on a daring mission that would be ten times better than this atrocity.
This box set is a great addition for true Indy fans. Even though they released a DVD box set in 2008, and a Blu-ray box set in 2012, the 4K addition is truly amazing in overall quality. I honestly thought the quality of the Blu-ray set couldn’t be topped but I was wrong, almost every shot in 4K is utterly spectacular. Skin, stone, and fabrics all show more refinement than ever before, complete with sharper, cleaner lines and textures. “Raiders” seems to have benefitted the most from the 4K transfer but that is because it was the first, and the best, and what better way to preserve its visual aesthetic and amazing sound design, than giving it a 4K release. Indy 5 is currently in production, with Harrison Ford returning as the titular hero but Steven Spielberg stepped down as director, handing the reins over to James Mangold instead, and I am totally fine with this. After the debacle of “Crystal Skull,” I am excited to see what some new blood can bring to the seemingly last film in the Indy saga. Roll on July 29, 2022.
All four films are now available in a new 4K Ultra HD Box Set
