Rating:

Talking about the revelation of Indy 4’s title and such got me all exicted. I’ve been a huge fan of the series for forever, and even before I wanted to be James Bond, a Jedi or an anthropomorphic turtle skilled in the martial arts, I wanted to be Indiana Jones. As a kid, I carried a jump rope around everywhere, pretending that it was a whip and that, if necessary, I could definitely swing across a chasm with it. I’ve seen Raiders of the Lost Ark more times than I’ve seen any other single movie; I watched it every single day for a a span of years. I soon began to watch Last Crusade almost as much.

Temple of Doom, though, was a different kettle of fish altogether. I didn’t see it until a couple years after I’d seen the other two, and have watched it least often since (although still dozens of times). I’d always considered it my least favorite, the weak link in an otherwise strong chain. A recent look back at the movie, however, has caused me to reevaluate my position somewhat. It’s still technically my least favorite of the three movies, but not by a wide enough margin for me to give it any less than a perfect rating. It’s a great picture through and through

I think my original reluctance to accept Temple of Doom is due to how widely it varies from the other two. Instead of being a globe-trotting adventure chase, the action is confined to one location. It’s an impregnable fortress type of movie, rather than the sprawling, all over the world affairs that Raiders and Last Crusade are. As I’ve stated before, this middle film in the trilogy is without the character of Marcus (Denholm Elliott) and Sallah (John Rhys-Davies), and they are sorely missed. Indy’s partners in this movie, Short Round (Ke Huy Quan) and Willie (Kate Capshaw) do not fill the gap. Also, the Nazis are gone as villains. Nazis make excellent bad guys. You’re never compelled to sympathize with them, and that makes them perfect; they’re as faceless and expendable as Star Wars‘ Storm Troopers or the robotic Foot soldiers in the Ninja Turtles cartoon. But, on the other hand, the Thugee cultists who are the baddies in this movie can do something you never see Nazis do: rip out someone’s still-beating heart and sacrifice it to their god while chanting things like “Kill the pig, flay his skin, drink his blood.” So there’s a give and take in everything, is what I’m saying.

The real focus of any Indiana Jones movies is of course the action, and Temple of Doom has more that its share. Walls close in on you, secret passageways open, airplanes crash…the works. Indy and his traveling companions find themselves in one death-defying situation after another. You’ve barely had time to catch your breath from the last sequence before the next one has begun, and it all leads up to an underground mine-cart chase that is still completely dazzling almost twenty-five years later. In addition to the more conventional dangers the characters face, they’re also constantly plagued by black magic and bad juju. Peril awaits them at every turn and you’re constantly on the edge of your seat, dying to find out how they’re gonna get out of this one.

The movie also looks at the famous snake-filled Well of the Souls sequence from Raiders of the Lost Ark and says “I’ll see your gross-out and raise you a billion.” There’s the ripping out of still beating hearts that I mentioned earlier, of course, but there’s also a dinner sequence where each course is grosser than the one before, making it sort of like Fear Factor before there ever was such a thing. And, oh yeah, did I mention bugs? The snakes in Raiders didn’t ever bother me. Snakes are cool, right? We all like snakes. But producer George Lucas and director Steven Spielberg apparently decided the thing they needed to do most with their sequel was give me a lifetime of nightmares, and so Indy and his friends are forced to make their way through a passageway fill to bursting with bugs. Oh, god, I get the shakes just thinking about it. Every kind of gross looking insect imaginable sashays merrily across the screen and bores a terrified hole directly into your soul. Bugs crawl all over everyone, little bugs, big bugs, bugs that look mean enough to be attorneys. Some of them even crawl up under Kate Capshaw’s hair!!!!!. Excuse me a moment, I have to go take a shower.

Okay, enough about the bugs. Bleagghh! Another noteworthy thing about this movie is its prequel status. The title card at the beginning of the picture tells us it’s set in 1935, one year before the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark. A lot of people say that was a pointless choice and the movie could just as well have been a direct sequel, but I’m here to tell you those people are stupid. Indy’s character is significantly different in the early part of Temple of Doom from the way he’s portrayed throughout Raiders. As this movie starts, he is first and foremost driven by profit. When his plane crashes and leaves him stranded in an Indian village, the village leader tells him of their plight: Their sacred rock has been stolen by the Thugee cultists at Pankot Palace and their children have all been kidnapped and enslaved. Indy doesn’t seem to really believe him or care. It’s only when he begins to suspect that the villagers missing rock is one of the legendary Sankara Stones, and may have the capacity to bring him tremendous “fortune and glory,” as he puts it, that he decides to go in search of it. And this writer’s opinion is that his original plan was to retrieve the stone and skip town with it, heading back to the states and selling it and leaving the poor villagers high and dry. Consider: He brings Short Round and Willie with him to Pankot Palace, on a potentially dangerous mission. Why would he do that if his intention was to come back to the village? It was only when he saw that the stories of child enslavement and evil murderers were true that he began to see the need for occasional selfless acts. By giving us this different view of Indy a year before we saw him last, the character is able to grow instead of remain static, and he’s more interesting because of it. We watch him go from the profit-obsessed guy he is here to the more mature and considerate person who is able to choose his family over his prize at the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

So, what I’m saying is, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is great. It’s my least favorite of the series, yes, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad; it’s like saying Miss November is the least hot of three Playmates of the Month. If I may use a beaten-to-death phrase, it’s a roller coaster of a movie in all the best possible ways. Scares, excitement, laughs, loves…they’re all here and they’re all perfect. In conclusion: I still want to be Indiana Jones.

God, I’m never going to make it another eight months.

If you don’t like Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, you will also totally hate:

If You Hated This, You Will Also Totally Hate:

• Thoughts on Indy 4
• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
• Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Voyage of Discovery
• Five Days to Indy!