Second best of the series

Rating: Null/10 (25 January 2002)

Indiana Jones is going a little grey around the temples, but he's not lost his knack for getting into trouble in the search for religious antiquities. He should really know better by now. This movie heralds a return to the formula that made Raiders so enjoyable and in doing so marks Temple of Doom as the clear odd-man-out of the trilogy. Denholm Elliot and John Rhys Davies, both missing from the previous film, make a welcome return, as do Nazis, globe-trotting quests and those great scenes featuring Indy trying to cut it as a college lecturer and finding it slightly more challenging than fighting off scimitar-wielding arabs. And then there's Sean Connery.
The moment Connery first appears as Henry Jones Sr. (Indy's change of name is explained in the movie) the enjoyment level, previously at 10, gets turned up to 11. Every scene he shares with Harrison Ford is a joy. In Connery's presence, Indiana Jones: Adventurer and Action Hero becomes Jones Junior: Upstart and Very Naughty Boy. When Indy machine-guns a room full of Nazis in order to make an escape, Dad's reaction is not "Yeah! You kicked butt! Now let's get the hell outta here!", rather it's "Look at what you've done!" It's more than just refreshing, it's absolutely inspired.
The plot's familiar. Indy races against the forces of evil (Nazis) to recover a mythical artifact. As before there is plenty of action and romance, but there's a little more humour than in the first two movies. Speilberg even indulges in the odd little in-joke. (For example - Indy and female companion are examining some ancient paintings: "What's that one?"... "The ark of the covenant"... "You sure?"... "Pretty sure!"... cue a two second snippet of John Williams ark theme from Raiders). What this film does lack, however, is a really memorable boo-hiss-able baddie. Julian Glover's Donovan is clearly an attempt to mimic Belloq from Raiders, but he's way too smug, way too wet, and has none of the arrogance and obsession-bordering-on-madness that Paul Freeman had as Belloq. And if Glover is wet, the nazis are wetter - even Hitler comes across as kind of a nice guy.
It's a small complaint though. This is really a great and worthy successor to Raiders. It's everything Temple of Doom should have been but wasn't.
9/10