Sometimes a body needs cinema.
I hadn’t been to the movies in over a month. It’s still a few weeks to Barbenheimer and I didn’t want to see the new Indiana Jones film. But I had to see something. At least with Indiana Jones I’ll see him punch some Nazis.
I was done with the character after the Last Crusade. The third film was a near-perfect end. The fourth was cool for about 45 minutes before it lost me. Whatever. He’ll still punch Nazis in this fifth business.
FLASHBACK — MAY 23, 1989 — AMBOY MULTIPLEX — SOMEWHERE IN NEW JERSEY
I’m on line to buy tickets for Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade with my friend, Magnus Thunderballs. That’s right. We were on line. In the long, long ago you used to have to wait on line to see a movie on opening night.
This was a special early showing on a Thursday. Magnus is an even bigger Indiana Jones fan than me. But I have an earring. So I’m cooler.
Magnus Thunderballs loved Temple of Doom and I was whatever about it. Great third act but a lotta weird shit before you get there. We discuss all this as we line up to get our spot in the theater.
Yep. You used to have to line up behind a velvet rope before you got a seat in the theater. Cinema used to have panache.
It’s possible future Academy Award winning screenwriter, producer, and director Christopher McQuarrie was sweeping the popcorn in the lobby. He worked at the Amboy Cinemas. He also directed the Mission Impossible movie that’s coming out a week after Barbenheimer. New Jersey sure can create an artist.
We find seats towards the front on the right. Perfect. Keep the distractions and the people around you to a minimum.
Lights down, Paramount logo up, cue the John Williams score, and let Spielberg cook.
The movie opens in Utah in 1912. A teenage Indiana Jones, played by River Phoenix, who left us far too soon, wanders away from his Boy Scout troop to a cave. He finds some grave robbers digging. The head robber is a dashing man in a brown leather jacket and fedora.
They find the Cross of Coronado. Everyone drools but not our young Indy. “It belongs in a museum,” he declares. The hero is born.
Indy sneaks down, grabs the cross, and takes off. The grave robbers chase and here we go.
In one shot I felt more alive than I’d ever been.
While Indiana Jones and his horse race through the scrub followed by a car full of bad guys, a circus train rolls in the distance. The John Williams score is bouncy, reedy, and rounded out by brass, always the brass with Williams.
The camera catches the train and the sun-baked horizon near the top of the frame. Anyone who saw The Fabelmans knows why Spielberg framed it this way. He took an important lesson from John Ford, “if the horizon’s in the middle, it’s boring as shit!”
In that moment I wanted to stand up and cheer. This was Spielberg reclaiming this series. He made Last Crusade to honor his promise to friend and producer George Lucas to make a trilogy. The director also wanted to make up for Temple of Doom, which he felt was too dark and mean. My fanboy heart was on fire. Steven Spielberg was making it clear as hell: we’re BACK.
The action moves to the train where we get the origins of Indy’s fear of snakes and use of a bullwhip. Spielberg’s camera moves with a deftness unmatched by anyone. No one moves the camera more elegantly than Spielberg. Nobody.
Indy escapes to his home where we get the first hint of the true conflict of the movie: a father and son. The bad guys come in, backed by the sheriff, and Indy is forced to give up the Cross of Coronado.
The dashing robber approaches Indy and says, “You lost today, kid. But that doesn’t mean you have to like it.” He places his fedora on Indy’s head, dubbing him a knight really.
Then Williams cues the Indiana Jones theme. In a match cut; Spielberg loves a match cut; the image changes to the man we all came to see, Harrison Ford.
The applause in the theater at that moment was fantastic. Magnus Thunderballs and I made eye contact and both our faces were lit up with excitement. It remains one of the best feelings I’ve ever had at the cinema.
BACK TO PRESENT DAY
A de-aged Harrison Ford is punching Nazis and leaping around a train. A few minutes into Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and it’s already a mess.
The main problem is so much of it just isn’t really there. The film is shot with so many digital backgrounds that you never know what’s real and what isn’t.
Director James Mangold can direct a movie but this is a tough ask. He does his best work when the film stops for a breath every so often. Watching people be people is more interesting than a CGI superhero racing through a digital Tangiers.
Harrison Ford is fantastic as always and Phoebe Waller-Bridge is fun. Mads Mikkelsen and the rest of the cast perform well without much to play.
The script, written by not one but four highly-priced screenwriters, presents a few good ideas and the plot moves well. But this movie is straining to keep it together in nearly every scene.
When the final act comes, the film goes fully off the rails. It’s full-blown crazy town-banana pants. Just a complete meltdown into the absurd.
Look, I wasn’t expecting much. I’m well aware that you can’t recapture important moments from when you were a teenager. It’s unhealthy to try. But I still felt letdown.
The best example of the movie is a shot of a boat on a sea in the Mediterranean. The sun kisses the water and reflects up into the ether. It should be a dynamic and beautiful image. But the horizon is in the middle of the frame and instead, it’s boring as shit.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is available to stream on Disney Plus.
Definitive Ranking of Indiana Jones Movies — it’s a subjective list and you can argue with me, but you’d be wrong.
- Raiders of the Lost Ark
- Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
- Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
- Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
- Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
