Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is my least favorite of the movies in this series. After a true departure in the second one and getting hit with both diminished critical and popular appeal, the creators decided to make another Jones versus the Nazis movie. It's as great target they select, the Holy Grail being a rather familiar icon for the errant archeologists to seek out. But like so many sequels this one apes the original in too many places to elevate it above anything other than a retread. It's a handsomely mounted retread, but a retread nonetheless.
Don't get me wrong. This is a fun movie to watch, a wild ride with good enough characterization and vile enough villains, but something from the original is lost. That something is gravity. The lightheartedness of the movie in so many places ultimately undermine its moments of grittiness, and those moments seem derivative if exciting.
The strengths of this one is the interplay between the stars Harrison Ford and Sean Connery as son and father. They have a nice chemistry, and this is the heart of the theme of the story. But that strength also detracts from some of the other aspects of the story such as the mysticism around the Grail and the relationship between Ford and his female co-star Allsion Doody. John Rhys Davies is a welcome addition his appearance points again back to the original and reminds the viewer how much different this outing is.
The Indiana Jones movies were always intended to be love letters to old-style storytelling from the days of the movie serials. We get that in the structure of the tales which are episodic, with Indy traveling the world in his efforts to find his goal. The Grail is the one which means the most to him by the end of the movie because finding it allows him to actually save the life of his father. The movie is very clever in places, and I really enjoyed that "X" marks the spot moment. This is a really good movie and offered up a nifty first "finale" for the trilogy as our heroes ride off literally into the sunset. But as we all know that wasn't the end. More on that next time.
Rip Off
I thought it was miles better than the first sequel, and I only had two things that bugged me about the film. One was making Denholm Elliot's "Marcus" a buffoon, and the second which I will always, always hate, is finding out at the end, that "Indiana" is not his given name. I mean, seriously? One of the most iconic names in film, and he just calls himself "Indiana"? It was supposed to be funny, but I never found it so.
ReplyDeleteI think I agreed with you back in the day, but I've switched and like the second one pretty well now. I do agree that there is too much comedy at the expense of Marcus.
DeleteI think for the very reason you suggest, the convenience of the heroes and so the writers to allow them to wrap up the story with a neat little bow. I agree it's a sticking point.
ReplyDeletehmm? What happened to the CT I made about Crusade. I didn't remove it...
ReplyDeleteI honestly don't know. If I deleted by accident somehow, I apologize. I seem to have responded and I don't do that until I've posted the comment to the blog. (I assume that's my response to your comment above.) Sorry amigo. I looked in my trash and I've already deleted that stuff out or I'd repost it for you. If you feel like recreating it, I'd be more than happy to repost it for you.
DeleteOK, no problem. I've had to purge various ad-trash myself so I'm sure that can happen easily enough. Originally I just said that the threat of the Nazis getting their hands on the Cup seemed underwhelming if the immortality mojo couldn't be extended beyond the sanctuary, and I was gonna follow up by wondering aloud--
ReplyDeleteWould the ending would have been stronger if the Ratzis had had some sort of sorcerer in their midst-- maybe the rich guy who betrays Indy-- who knew of some way to steal the mojo and confer it onto anyone he wished. Thus you get the potential of unlimited immortal foot soldiers who can't be killed.
On a separate note, when I reviewed TEMPLE, it occurred to me that RAIDERS had a lot of gross-out moments too, though not as many, and that Lucas and Spielberg never revisited grossout horror in the Indy series after TEMPLE got such blowback.
Your fanciful revision of the plot does make Indy's mission more important. Like the third Star Wars movie, the third Indy movie seems to have been more directly targeted to a younger demographic. By this time the creators had pioneered product placement in substantial ways and making a movie which precluded youngsters likely undermined the potential for additional profits in other areas. The 80's saw entertainment become more synthesized and toys began to rule the roost, at least in the genre category.
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