Not as wonderful as the first two, but still enjoyable.

Rating: 7/10 (1 January 2004)

This installment of an otherwise successful run of movies was the most contrived piece of garbage I've ever seen. They tried to explain the scar on Indiana's chin, his fear of snakes, his style of dress, and his love of all things arcane, in the first ten or fifteen minutes of the movie, and frankly, it just didn't work for me.
As much as I loved the first two of these installments, this one just left me cold. After that ten minutes, however, things did get better..for a while.
I found Sean Connery's character's need to debase our hero, to be trite and just wrong. I hated it, in fact. I cared not for his ramblings, considering his son had all this field experience, and he obviously was more at home in a museum.
Heck, at his age, he could almost be an exhibit. I really detested the way they used Connery to lower our estimation of Ford's character. I would have liked it better had they worked together, rather than having been written to constantly go at one another. It devalued the whole franchise for me.
The whole movie was not awful, but this was the first installment with which I had any issues whatsoever. The next thing I found wrong with this attempt was that they went back to the Germans again, rather than moving on to something new.
The relic for which Indiana Jones is searching is new, but the story was more of an attempt to redeem themselves after the gore of The Temple of Doom. I frankly did not mind the gore; that story and execution of that story was excellently done.
So, okay, it is the Germans again. Nothing we can do about that. And, again, the artifact is a Christian artifact. What with all the wonderful legendary relics of our richly documented mythological ancestries, why go back to something that has already been touched upon? This is more like a remaking of the Raiders of the Lost Ark, than a new installment.
What about the lost library of Alexandria? What about Atlantis? What about the Bermuda Triangle? Stonehenge? The Isle of White? Easter Island? The literal thousands of mysteries in Carnac, Cairo, or Thebes, such as the Great Sphinx and the secret room which is supposed to be hidden there? The headpiece of Isis which was supposed to show the gateway to the heavens, and so on?
Why go back to the same original formula of the first, only to end the franchise there? If they were setting up for a new run, then I could see going back to the beginning, but this was not the beginning of a new run. This was the end of the run. So I fail to conceive of why they would copy the first movie so closely in both specifics AND generalities.
I can understand why they would feel the need, perhaps, for deeper character development with Jones and his father, hence their bringing in Connery to debase Indiana and make us view him in a lesser light. But again, that is in the case of the beginning of a new run, but as I said, this was the end of the run, so why DO that? We loved the character just fine, without the in-depth character development, and certainly without being made to feel sorry for his character by being subjected to an unappreciative father's constant haranguing. I simply do not see the reasoning behind it. It lowered my entire estimation of this movie, something fierce.
Where this final chapter could have been great, it was simply...okay, and rather a disappointment. I was glad this was to be the last of the Indiana Jones movies, if that was what they were reduced to.
There are some good elements here, please do not get me wrong. The movie was still moderately enjoyable. The mysteries and intrigues were craftily written, the dialog was witty and clever, and the effects were excellent Lucas/Spielberg fare. I just found Connery's noisome presence to be totally undesirable and unnecessary.
But now, as of this writing, at any rate (01/01/04), there are plans to do another installment, with Ford, at the ripe old age of 62. I must really say, "I have doubts." If his latest film, "Hollywood Homicide" is any indication, I will have to say that they will be much better off leaving him in the university, this time. It was truly sad to witness his performance in that movie. He ~fell down~ more than he pulled his gun! I was very disheartened to see him like that. With "What Lies Beneath," at least they had a new genre for him, something which would allow him to gracefully age into ultra-maturity. But no, they could not leave it at that. It will take over a year for them to film Indiana Jones 4, what with having to stop every few minutes, to let Ford catch his breath and freshen up. But with the problematic script and postponement after postponement, they may end up scrapping this movie all together. I DO hope so. But if I'm wrong, I hope they leave Connery out of this next one.
Regardless of its short-comings, it still earns an 7.4 from...
the Fiend :.