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Directed By
Steven Spielberg
Written By:
Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz
Cast:
Harrison Ford, Kate Capshaw, Jonathan Ke Quan, Roshan Seth, Roy Chiao, David Yip, Ric Young, Philip Tan, Dan Aykroyd, Michael Yama, Ahmed El Shenawi, Amrish Puri, Philip Stone Blumburtt, Chua Kah Joo, Dr. Akio Mitamura, Rex Ngui
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Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
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Movie Review by Jarrod
June 26th, 2008
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'Temple of Doom' is the most action-packed of the three (well, now four) Indian Jones films, and was inexplicably rated PG at the time of its release, even though it has a heart being ripped out of a man's chest, which alone should have merited PG-13. Indy (Harrison Ford) starts off in Shanghai, retrieving the remains of an ancient Chinese emperor for the devious Lao Che, in exchange for a diamond. Lao does not honor his end of the bargain, and tries to poison Indy. After seizing the antidote, Indy escapes amidst a flurry of bullets with American club singer Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw). They unknowingly get on one of Lao's planes, and the pilots abandon them, but they dive to safety on an inflatable raft, landing in the snowy mountains below, then riding over a waterfall. How the raft avoids getting cut to pieces by sharp rocks is anyone's guess. Once ashore, they discover that they are in India, at a small village where the children have been abducted and a sacred stone has been stolen. The culprits turn out to be not Nazis, but an evil cult led by Mola Ram.
The cult worships a god named Kali and makes human sacrifices, while using the abducted children as slaves in a series of subterranean mines. Indy stumbles upon the cult after paying a visit to Pankot Palace, where a revolting dinner scene occurs. A presumably pregnant snake is cut open as its offspring slither out of its belly; dessert consists of chilled monkey brains, and the main entrée is a big plate of beetles. There is a secret underground tunnel filled with bugs of various sizes and shapes, so many of them, in fact, that the ground appears to be moving in the darkness. Indy stumbles from one trap into another, sometimes even scoffing at the sheer impossibility of his predicaments. A thrilling mine cart chase is followed by a race against raging water and then by a showdown with Ram on a wooden bridge suspended above a river filled with hungry alligators. The stunts are superbly crafted and conceived, and combined with breathless pacing and Oscar-winning visual effects; 'Temple of Doom' is a piece of white-knuckled entertainment. The effects, by today's standards, do look a bit dated, and in some ways even slightly artificial, like when the plane explodes or when a mine cart full of Thuggees derails, but this does little to diminish the giddy excitement that they produce. As a love interest, Willie is less interesting than Marion Ravenwood, but Capshaw makes her amusing and likable, and she has sparkling, playful chemistry with Ford, who is, as always, a strong charismatic presence. Short Round is an utter delight, definitely Indy's best sidekick; it is a real shame he could not return for future installments. He is a smart and agile kid, can hold his own in a fight against adults several times his size by demonstrating resourcefulness and using his small frame to great advantage.
There is noticeably less exposition; the absence of Marcus Brody or Henry Sr or another academic character whose only real purpose is to explain the history or mystical powers of the religious relic that is so pivotal to the plot. Indy does not even engage in much of this himself, talking only briefly about the significance of those glowing stones and about how the Thuggee cult was supposedly driven to extinction by the British forces occupying India. Of course, the sacred stones are not recognizable Christian artifacts like The Ark of the Covenant and The Holy Grail, but are based instead on Hindu legend and folklore; Western audiences are not as familiar with that. 'Temple of Doom' is sandwiched between Raiders and The Last Crusade in terms of overall quality; it would have been difficult for Spielberg to top Raiders, and he does not even try, instead, he simply takes the existing formula and exploits it beautifully, offering precisely the kind of experience one has to come to expect from an Indiana Jones adventure.
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