"Last Crusade" is superb on its own, even had the first two never been made.

Rating: Null/10 (4 August 2004)

I was so anxious to buy the DVD set of the three Indiana Jones movies, and did the first day of release, but only last night got around to watching 'The Last Crusade'. As I did, I could not help thinking, how would this movie been received if the first two Indiana Jones movies had never been made? It is very difficult to follow the lead in a trilogy, as we saw in 'Back to the Future', for example. But my answer to myself was, 'The Last Crusade' is superb no matter what. 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' will always remain my favorite of the trilogy, but 'Last Crusade' is just a small fraction of a mini-step behind. Sean Connery's role as Indy's father, Dr Jones, works perfectly. And the opening sequences with River Phoenix as the young Indy, showing us how he got the scar on his chin, plus his trademark hat, are very fitting to the whole movie. Even though the adventure becomes the search for the chalice, it is really the father and son searching for the relationship they somehow missed as Indy grew up.
As we expected the DVD is absolutely superb. Colors are accurate and rich, and the video bit rate is almost 'Superbit' quality. The Dolby 5.1 sound with the John Williams score is a perfect complement. Just one, fine adventure movie!
Main cast ... Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones , Sean Connery as Professor Henry Jones , Denholm Elliott as Dr. Marcus Brody, Alison Doody (an Irish lady) as Dr. Elsa Schneider , John Rhys-Davies as Sallah , and River Phoenix as Young Indy .
Update: Dec 2016 - watched it again after 14 years, so much of it was fresh again, and thoroughly enjoyable.
SPOILERS follow, for my own reference, please read no further.
Young Indy as a Boy Scout in Utah (Arches Nat'l Park) finds a relic-robber discovering an antiquity, captures it for placing in a museum, is chased, on a train, the lion's car, bullwhip nicks his chin, thus the scar, eventually escapes, gets home, but the police are waiting for him, the explorer gets his antiquity back, gives young Indy the hat that will become his trademark, sees the foreigner who is buying the antiquity. Cut to modern times, ship at sea, Indy is recapturing the same antiquity from the same foreigner, he jumps, ship explodes, back in the classroom, shows Marcus Brody the recovered prize. Strangers recruit him for a mission to find the chalice that Christ used at the Last Supper, he balks, finds out his dad (Connery) was their hire but now missing. Dad's diary had been mailed to him from Venice, he heads there, the real adventure begins. Ends where the chalice is, guarded 700 years by an old knight, dad is shot by the bad guy, Indy has to get chalice to save him.