The Indiana Jones trilogy
Now Playing: (1981/1984/1989, all Steven Spielberg) [seen on DVD]
It's been said that the Indiana Jones movies are the ultimate modern Hollywood mainstream franchise, and in a way that makes sense. James Bond has long since lapsed into self-parody, and the Star Wars movies carry a geeky stigma that Indy doesn't. I know that as a kid I saw the Indy movies many more times than the Star Wars movies, and though I've never had the chance to catch them on the big screen, back then that hardly mattered to a shy kid with access to a VCR.

Way back when, my favorite was the third in the trilogy, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, mainly because of the opening sequence, in which we see young Indy as a Boy Scout (an organization to which I belonged at the time- so much for leaving baggage at the door). I also liked Harrison Ford's scenes with his dad (Sean Connery) a lot, and the scenes at the end when they've found the Holy Grail. This was the entry in the series I watched over and over, although I really liked Raiders of the Lost Ark as well. I didn't get to watch Temple of Doom as often, possibly because I had a little brother and the scene where Amrish Puri removes the guy's heart scared him.

Having watched all three in the days since my purchase of the newly-released DVD set of the trilogy, I was a bit taken aback by the realization that I was enjoying the third film the least. It's still a good, fun movie, don't get me wrong- it's just that, with a little more distance on it, the film's drawbacks become more apparent. To begin with, I was annoyed by the way two of the film's recurring characters (Sallah and Brody) were turned into buffoons this time out. While they were dependable companions in Raiders, here they're mainly comic relief (John Rhys-Davies and the late Denholm Elliott, both fine actors, certainly deserved better). Also, with CG technology pervading into Hollywood at the time, there's a greater reliance upon computer effects here, and sad to say some of them don't really hold up very well, with the most glaring example being the sequence with the airplane. All the same, the interplay between Ford and Connery here is pretty great, and the idea of the Grail inspired a number of rather poetic dialogue scenes in screenwriter Jeffrey Boam.

I think it goes without saying that Raiders is still great. There's absolutely no fat on this one, in my opinion. Spielberg plunges Indy right into the action at the beginning of the film, and rarely lets up. Even the "slow" scenes between Indy and Karen Allen's Marion serve not only to supply a love interest for our hero, but also to further the story and lead into and out of the action. Marion, in my eyes anyway, was the ideal woman for Indiana Jones, since she could be fiercely self-reliant and no-nonsense, but also feminine when the occasion called for it. And the Nazi villains (later to re-appear in Last Crusade) gave Spielberg a real chance to exorcise the demons in his Jewish past along with allowing the audience a group of antagonists everyone could hate. One can imagine Spielberg cackling with glee as the Ark of the Covenant smites the evil Nazis in the film's climactic sequence, which is still plenty effective today.

And yet, while the first film is the best in the series, I'll be darned if I don't have a lot of genuine affection for Temple of Doom. While viewing all three films these last few days, this one came the closest to what I had remembered from my childhood. I remembered how cool Indy was, and how angry he got when he saw the injustices taking place in the mines- here's where he really gets to prove his hero mettle, by finding a cause and then fighting for it. I never really liked Willie (Kate Capshaw) when I was a kid, and watching the movie again reminded me why- after Marion, why would Indy fall for this clueless, ditsy girl who mostly just has to be dragged along while Indy saves the day (the third film barely finds room for a love interest at all, since Elsa, played by Allison Doody, is treated as arm candy before she betrays Indy, and Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS afterwards). The minecar chase still works exceptionally well, because it feels like the coolest roller-coaster you'd never get the chance to ride.

But what I had forgotten almost entirely was how affecting the relationship between Indy and Short Round (played by Ke Huy Quan) was. Instead of the daddy issues Spielberg usually plays with, this relationship is founded upon the idea of hero worship, with Shorty unconditionally idolizing Indy ("that's Dr. Jones to you!"). The character as written could have been an offensive Asian stereotype, especially when he's given lines like "hold onto your potatoes!" But instead the film (and young Ke Huy Quan, who also starred in the Spielberg-produced Goonies) make him a fully-functioning sidekick and ward for the protagonist, as well as the closest the series gets to a director surrogate. When the kid shouts "Indy, you're my best friend!", I never doubted it; when Indy, in a potion-induced trance, slaps Shorty, it's suitably painful. And when the kid gets the chance to fight alongside his hero at the end, it's a triumphant moment.

I haven't had much of a chance to look at the extra features, but honestly, does it really matter? The films work well enough by themselves, and the first two do more than that.

Ratings:
Raiders - A-; Temple - A-; Crusade - B