Great indie film!

Rating: 7/10 (8 March 2012)

Given that action and adventure is the series' selling point, you can expect the thrills and wondrous delight of discovery delivered in spades. The action scenes are terrific (and matched well with John Williams' rousing, memorable score, also the best of the trilogy), the best being a fantastic ten-minute chase sequence on board (and in) a tank, possibly the best action sequence of Spielberg's career. I also loved the motorcycle chase and the Zeppelin setpiece, where the heroes go about dispatching of two enemy fighters in unexpected, but quite hilarious, fashion. The climax, complete with frightening booby traps, is a suspenseful venture into the unknown.
The Last Crusade is far more humor-oriented than its predecessors, but part of the movie's effectiveness is that it's able to deliver belly laughs without defusing the tension during the action sequences. Some of the jokes are just brilliant, including one with Indy armed with a Luger in confrontation with a trio of Nazis on board a tank that's even funnier than the swordsman scene in Raiders (well, to me, at least).
The supporting cast is all-around superb; John Rhys-Davies is back as Sallah, wonderful as ever and displaying a bit more enthusiasm searching for the Grail than he did digging up the Ark of the Covenant. The late Denholm Elliot also returns as Marcus Brody, the most lovable goof of a museum curator. Alison Doody is interesting as Elsa, the blonde historian whom Indy falls for; a twist involving her character and her actions towards the climax make her not as one-dimensional as she may initially appear. Julian Glover is the best of the main Indy villains, he's far more menacing than Paul Freeman's Belloq and less over-the-top but equally enjoyable as Amrish Pruri's Mola Ram. I also enjoyed Michael Byrne's performance as the Jones hating Colonel Vogel, who relishes in torturing Indy and his father. When it comes to pure delightfully nasty villainy, Byrne is even more fun to watch than Glover.