The Temple Of Doom!

What do you do when you have a surprise hit movie on your hands? Today we are all accustomed to seeing sequels to virtually all movies that make money. But in the 80's this was a business model which was just getting started. The Raiders of the Lost Ark (a little movie made relatively quickly and based in no small part on B-movies of decades past) made a bushel of money for its producers so another Indiana Jones movie was required. Actually, they say that this always supposed to be a trilogy, but I bet if the first one had tanked the second wouldn't exist. As is often the case a sequel will not be as good as its predecessor and that's true for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. 

By all accounts this is the darkest and scariest of the first three Indiana Jones movies. I'd agree with that. Much of the movie takes place in the darkness of underground temples and mines, so the movie is literally dark. But it doesn't begin that way. To counterpoint the beginning of the first movie, in this one we get a splashy Busby Berkley dance number. It's neatly done and does gives a good glimpse into the less noble side of Indiana. He's a made a deal with the devil and he pays the price. 

The price puts him in India in 1936 which at the time and the region is still part of the once sprawling British Empire. We meet some seemingly urbane and civilized types but learn quickly that this is a mere ruse to cover the return of the infamous Thuggee cult which had been demolished decades before. This legendary murderous cult of Kali is a staple of adventure films and does good work here giving us several tasty villains de jour. 

The action in this one, once it begins in earnest, is unrelenting and perhaps a too much so. The first movie offered up fantastic action moments but maintained a pacing which allowed the violence to erupt. Here we get so much violence and action that it becomes arguably tiring. By the time the baddies are dispatched we are somewhat relieved it's over. That makes sound like I didn't enjoy it, but I did. 

This movie is criticized properly for kowtowing to racist tropes. That's all too true, but I'm curious why this one gets that critique when the first movie did a lot of the same kind of thing, but just with different cultures. The simplification of foreign peoples and their ways is practically a trope of this kind of movie. I might could see the critique more plainly if all the individuals of Indian culture were presented as stupid or evil or whatnot, but we get a range, admittedly a range familiar to moviegoers. This movie is typical of its genre, good and bad. 

Rip Off