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.
Available on 4K Ultra HD™ June 6th
