Raiders of the Lost Ark Review by Thom (5 Stars)

Raiders of the Lost Ark Review by Thom (5 Stars) | MatchFlick

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Movie Details

All Movie Info

Starring:
Harrison Ford, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman, John Rhys-Davies, Denholm Elliott, Ronald Lacey, Anthony Higgins, Alfred Molina, Wolf Kahler, William Hootkins, Patrick Durkin, Don Fellows, Bill Reimbold, Fred Sorenson, Vic Tablian

Directed By:
Steven Spielberg

Written By:
George Lucas, Philip Kaufman

Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

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Movie Review by Thom
May 22nd, 2008

Unearthed Treasure

Favorite Movie Quote: "I don't know; I'm making this up as I go along."

Whenever people talk about the Indian Jones trilogy, I always feel that they glaze over the fact that Temple of Doom blew billy-goat and fail to properly acknowledge what a perfect film Spielberg, Lucas, and screenwriter Lawrence Kasden (who also penned The Empire Strikes Back) created together in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Raiders, another of Lucas' love letters to the serials of his youth, starts off with our hero Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) sweating his way through the jungles of South America in search of a golden idol. In a prelude of things to come, hard-luck Jones gets betrayed by one of his hirelings, triggers the booby trap, gets betrayed by another hireling, loses the idol, gets it back, gets chased by a boulder, loses the idol again, this time to French archeologist Rene Belloq (Paul Freeman), and nearly gets filled full of poisoned darts before flying away with a hideously large snake in his lap.

Shortly after arriving back in the States, the government approaches Jones about Nazi interest in the Ark (built of solid gold and carrying the fragments of the Ten Commandments). It seems the Nazis are close, but lack a vital piece of the puzzle, a medallion in the possession of Jones' old flame, Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen). Jones heads to Nepal to scoop up the medallion (and inadvertently Marion) and shuttle off to Egypt to find the Ark with buddy Sallah (John Rhys-Davies) while being chased by a Nazi agent (Ronald Lacey). As the race to find and keep the Ark heats up, Jones and Marion get into and out of a series of ever-worse scraps.

The charm of Raiders is Harrison Ford, who projects a similar style of klutzy bravado that put him on the map as Han Solo in Star Wars. The rest of the cast, with a bunch of relative no-names playing the villains pitch-perfect, are also up to the challenge. Raiders also shines from a number of inventive - though believable - action sequences, from Indy being dragged by a truck to Marion gunning down a truck full of Nazis to a Harrison Ford inspired moment of a stupid idiot bringing a sword to a gun fight.

Shot for $18 million and grossing nearly $400 million worldwide (easily making it the top ticket of '81), nominated for eight Academy Awards including Best Picture, there's no doubt that Raiders was a phenomena that still stands up as a great film.

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