The best of the lot

Rating: 8/10 (12 January 2000)

They don't make films like this anymore. It feels genuine, it feels solid and it feels adventurous in a way that no other film has been able to copy. I love the third Indiana Jones for several reasons - but the main one is: the feeling it evokes.
The adventure film is a dying concept. The last one to date to really fit into the adventure-genre, "Cutthroat Island", didn't work out very well. It had the right feeling, and I kind of liked it. But adventure doesn't really work these days.
But with Indiana Jones, it's different. Indiana Jones is set in the perfect time (what other villains are better than nazis, evil Indians or just plain crooks?), has great timing and takes great care to assure that the adventure - i.e. traveling, meeting people, solving tricky problems and gaining something in the end - feels real. To do so, one needs humor (supplied by the animosity between Jones and his father, aptly played by Connery), magic (good ole Christian legends of eternal life) and a villain.
The very best part of this film is when Jones faces Hitler and gets his autograph in his fathers notebook - at a book burning fest in Berlin... Great fun.