are we watching the same film?

Rating: 5/10 (28 August 2000)

The Indy film I saw was terrible, full of bad humor, jokey villains, horrid effects and witless action. If there is some great 3rd Indy movie out there, could someone please point it out to me because I'd love to see it.
It certainly couldn't be Last Crusade which is a terrible film for so many reasons. Let's begin at the beginning. The opening sequence with River Phoenix as young Indy just screams "CONTRIVED" By this point the Indiana mystique was so high, someone felt the need to explain many of Indy's trademarks, so in one 10 minute sequence, we get the origin of his hat, his whip, his fear of snakes, the scar on his chin and his basic sense of right & wrong. If any 40+ year old human being could claim that so much of their personality comes from a single 10 minute incident as a child I would laugh in their face. Aside from the completely ridiculous nature of the sequence, even getting into the spirit of fun is next to impossible when the effects are so bad... the "animals" looked like refugees from Disneyland. When "Anaconda" had a snake that bad, people rightfully laughed, yet here people seem to think this makes for good filmmaking.
A couple of characters return from the first movie but as a fan I have to ask why? Did they bring Brody back to act as a mentor to Indy, to regale him (and us) with his exploits as a young archaeologist? Nope, they brought him back to turn him into a bumbling buffoon. Was Sallah brought back to act as Indy's contact & right hand man, to help him through strange and exotic lands where Indy may not be able to secure the resources he needs, but Sallah can? No, he was brought back to make camel jokes. ::sigh::
Now as for those famous Indy action scenes: in Raiders, Indy got the snot kicked out of him but always relied on his brains to survive (passing under a truck was a great stunt and a deft move for Indy to take). In the tank chase here, does Indy's intelligence save him? Does his skill? The answer is no, it's pure, blind luck. And who really thought he was ever in any real danger? Besides how dangerous is a poorly blue screened tank anyway?
While Sallah & Brody were reduced to cartoon characters, Indy himself became a joke, playing straight man to his father whose dialogue seemed to come from a TV sitcom, the only thing missing was the laugh track.
Of course, the only people more comicly inept that Indy & friends were the Nazi villains. It's hard to imagine these wanna-be keystone cops taking over a bowling alley let alone most of Europe. But of course, this plays right into the idea that hapless Indy can't face an actual challenging villain that might require skill and intelligence to defeat since in this movie, Indy displays no skill or intelligence.
Overall this movie is a hapless, witless exercise in attempted crowd pleasing that only succeeds in pleasing those hapless & witless enough to accept whatever drek the filmmakers give us instead of demanding real characters, real adventure, real thrills and real humor.
So for those of you with a videotape of the "best Indy ever" some of you are claiming to have seen, please, send me a copy so I can throw out my version of Last Crusade which obviously has all the good parts edited out.