Indy's greatest adventure

Rating: 9/10 (13 March 2009)

"Raiders of the Lost Ark" usually gets the lion's share of the praise when discussing the Indiana Jones series but I believe that the third entry is actually the best.
Here, Spielberg & Lucas returned to the style of "Raiders" while also refining all of the elements that made that film memorable. This time Jones is searching for perhaps the most fabled artifact of all, the holy grail.
In comparison to "Raiders", I think that the script is more polished, utilizes comedy more effectively and includes set-pieces that are just as entertaining as those seen previously. That being said, at first there's a bit of a sense of 'been there, done that' since the early scenes are a little too similar to the first film. However, the film soon finds its groove and doesn't let up until the credits roll.
A bonus this time around is the fact that Sean Connery stars as Jones's father. Ford & Connery are great together and the pairing lets us see aspects of the character that hadn't been explored before. John Rhys-Davies & Denholm Elliott reprise their roles from the first film while Alison Doody & Julian Glover do a fine job of portraying Jones's love interest and nemesis, respectively.
Spielberg's direction is once again top-notch and the special effects are solid. John Williams returns with another Oscar-nominated score that recaptures the spirit of the original. Overall, the production values are first-rate.
In the end, though, the most important thing to note about this film is that it's a hell of a lot of fun. I don't think that you could have asked for a better capper to the series, which is why it puzzles me that Spielberg & Lucas decided to revisit the character nearly twenty years later. As with "Star Wars", stick with the original trilogy and you won't be disappointed.