After a Quarter of a Century's Past, 'Raiders' is Still American Cinema's Best Action Film

Rating: 10/10 (28 March 2006)

Seeing "Raiders Of The Lost Ark" for its first release on the big screen was one of my greatest movie theater experiences as a small child.
The first of the three Indiana Jones movies was one of the best action films ever made, and certainly the best of the Indiana Jones sci-fi genre.
This film has everything. For villains there are knife wheeling Arabs, scheming Frenchmen, and of course Nazis. For dangers there were tarantulas, booby traps, imploding caves, runaway boulders, and poisonous snakes.
The setting is 1936. Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford), an archaeologist/college professor has just returned from a failed mission in the South American jungles. The head of the archeology department, has given Indy a new project. Find the sacred Ark of the Covenant, containing the original Ten Commandments carried by Moses, and beat the Nazis to it.
In order to find the ark's location, Indy must first travel to Nepal to recover a crystallized medallion once owned by Abner Ravenwood. Abner's daughter, Marion, (Karen Allen) now owns the piece and will give it to him for a price. The price may be greater than the reward. Nazis are everywhere and so are Asps! Snakes! Hundreds of them are a major roadblock in securing the lost Ark of the Covenant.
Truly amazing action sequences are joined together with spectacular special effects and a great soundtrack as Indy tries, desperately, to keep the Ark from falling into the hands of the Nazis. Don't forget this movie was made in 1981, the Pre- CGI era in American cinema.
In one action sequence a stunt double for Harrison Ford climbs under a moving truck transporting the Ark on a major Cairo highway headed for a large vessel in the Red Sea. But it is actor Harrison Ford's job to climb into the vehicle while on his belly, and holding onto nothing but a short rope.
When the Ark is finally opened late in the movie, real drama enfolds. Special effects are used as we finally see the wrath of God.
Of course this movie is science fiction and pure fantasy. The Nazis are depicted as evil in a satirical cartoon like way, not pure evil like the Third Reich that devastated most of Europe in the 1930's and early 1940's. But that is what movies are supposed to be all about. "Raiders Of The Lost Ark" was Steven Spielberg's best fantasy action movie, and his best film ever until "Schindler's List" came along in 1993, and "Saving Private Ryan" in 1998.
"Raiders of the Lost Ark" was filled with drama, adventure, and satirical humor. "Raiders of the Lost Ark" was a cinematic breakthrough an original, and a great action film.