Movie Notes: Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade
= 5 stars
Starring Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Alison Doody
Directed by Steven Spielberg
Synopsis
Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) teams up with his father Henry Jones (Sean Connery) on a quest for the Holy Grail. Unfortunately, the Nazis are also searching for the religious artifact.
The Good
- Indy’s father Henry Jones is played by the awesome Sean Connery, who provides someone fun for Indy to bicker with for comic relief. Yet at film’s end, he provides Indy with a touching moral choice.
- The opening sequence is an “origin story” of Indiana Jones as a young boy, stealing a cross from some grave robbers, one of whom wears a familiar fedora and chases young Indy into a train car full of snakes.
- Elsa (Alison Doody) is quite charming, after providing romantic temptation for Indy, but is later revealed to be a Nazi. She also makes a choice later in the film, for which she pays dearly.
- Both Marcus Brody and Sallah from Raiders return, and are touchingly included in the final horse ride into the sunset.
- The witty sense of humor returns — the librarian looking at his stamp, Indy meeting Hitler face to face, the chair in the fireplace, and the knight saying “he chose poorly.”
- The quest for the Holy Grail is on par with the religious qualities of the Ark, and the Grail’s mysterious powers serves to punish the bad guys and save the good.
- Notable set pieces are a voyage through a rat infested sewer, a motorcycle chase with dad in a sidecar, and a commandeered tank.
- Three pretty nifty puzzles Indy has to think his way through to reach the Grail.
The Bad
- Nothing.
Conclusion
Possibly better than the original, The Last Crusade expands wonderfully on the Indy character through the origin story and the introduction of his father. The script is also chock full with inventive situations, making me wonder why the heck the same people weren’t involved in making Crystal Skull. Maybe one can say of the fourth installment: “someone chose poorly.”
IMDB: Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade
Wikipedia: Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade
Rotten Tomatoes: Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade 89%
Sean Connery was a great addition to this film. Not only did it add a wonderful father/son dynamic, but they also had a great old/young dynamic (didn’t both of them want the same hot blonde Nazi chick at one point?). They tried to play up the father/son and old/young thing again in Crystal Skull, but somehow — like other aspects of that film — it fell short of its predecessor (Crusade) and ended up having the “been there, done that” syndrome.
I find it interesting too that I wasn’t offended by the idea of a super-old Crusader knight guarding the actual Grail. True, it sounds ridiculous, but I’m ok with slight flights of fancy in these films. In a way, I can understand where Lucas was trying to go with the alien plot of Indy 4. I really think there was a way to make the alien idea work. I imagine that’s why the script went through so many iterations. But as you say, they definitely chose poorly.
I’m glad Connery didn’t reprise his role in Indy 4 either. Indy 3 was just about perfect.
Yeah — it’s pretty shocking how much better Crusade was when I rewatched it
after seeing Crystal Skull. It covers so much more ground — the opening
scene to Indy’s childhood, Venice, Germany, the mideast, and the Grail is on
par with the ark in terms of a cool object to quest for. Then add in Indy’s
dad and it’s almost better than raiders in some ways.
I think the super-old crusader is in retrospect, was definitely rather
silly, and possibly not much sillier than anything in Skull, thankfully he
didn’t leave the cave, and showed up at the end after a lot of great stuff
had already passed. Wheras, Skull seemed to have silly things scattered
throughout the whole movie, starting with that refrigerator, although, even
that magnetized coffin was pretty silly, too.
This is the best movie in the series.
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