One of the top five action/adventure films ever made

Rating: 10/10 (4 February 2015)

The biggest blockbuster of 1981, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" introduced the now-iconic Indiana Jones, played by Harrison Ford. The film is a series of globetrotting adventures as Jones and other characters seek the lost Ark of the Covenant and (gulp) dare to open it.
"Raiders" ranks with my top five films of all time. Not only is the action/adventure exhilarating from beginning to end, the story's compelling and the characters are interesting. Ford is excellent, of course, but you also get Karen Allen (Miriam), Paul Freeman (Belloq), Ronald Lacey (Major Arnold Toht), Wolf Kahler (Colonel Dietrich), John Rhys-Davies (Sallah) and several more (e.g. Denholm Elliott). Rhys-Davies and Lacey are standout examples of the excellent supporting cast.
Everything about "Raiders" magically works and you can tell the incredible effort that was put into making it. While Steven Spielberg directed it, George Lucas & Phillip Kaufman came up with the story and Lawrence Kasdan wrote the screenplay. Needless to say, it's significantly better than the three sequels/prequels, as well as the direct-to-video/TV ones. Don't get me wrong, most of the other Indy adventures are worthwhile, but none capture the beginning-to-end magic of the original.
The film was so successful that a hoard of movies clearly borrowed from it in the ensuing decades. Some quite successfully, like 1999's "The Mummy," and others not-so-successfully, like 2001's "The Mummy Returns." Speaking of the latter film, it has a lot going for it, including the Indiana Jones appeal: A great cast, locations, costumes, cinematography, F/X, etc., but it's all for naught as the plot and characters are merely a clothesline to string together continuous action and F/X sequences. It's all style and "excitement" without substance. "Raiders," by contrast – fun as it is – includes an interesting story, character depth and even some fascinating insights. On top of this is the string of action sequences second-to-none: The jungle treasure opening, the Nepal bar brouhaha, the streets of Cairo chase, the Well of Souls in Tanis sequence, the plane episode, the truck sequence, and, of course, the thrilling and horrifying opening of the sacred Ark.
The jungle scenes were shot in Kaua'i; the Cairo/desert scenes in Tunisia; the Nazi submarine base in France; the college scenes in Hertfordshire, England; the D.C. scenes in San Francisco; and other scenes in Stockton, CA, and England.
The film runs 115 minutes.
GRADE: A+