My Favourite Movie of All Time. Raiders Combines Great Action, Laughs and Adventure

Rating: 10/10 (14 July 2016)

I must have seen this movie between 50-100 times. My parents passed the Indy trilogy down to me as a kid and they blew my mind. They were just so immensely enjoyable with the big action set pieces and in my opinion the best action hero in Indiana Jones fighting against evil to protect the good. There wasn't green screen overuse or a crazy amount of gore, just this professor who had the requisite set of skills to take on the Nazis and recover this artifact of unimaginable power. I loved Raiders immediately and even over 30 years later it stands the test of time.
*Minor Spoilers Ahead* In the year 1936 a group of men hike through the jungle in Peru. They find a dead body that has been hit with a poison dart and they estimate he's been there for 3 days. One of the men tries to attack one of the others but in shadow he pulls out his whip and uses it to disarm him. The attacker runs off and the man with the whip steps out of shadow. He's wearing a fedora and a leather jacket, he's later introduced as Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford).
They arrive at the temple and his friend urges him not to go in. Indy mentions that one of his competitors disappeared in there. They go in and the place is covered in cobwebs and insects and they are both covered in tarantulas. They brush them off and keep going. They are about to continue when they spring a trap activated by the light in the room. Spikes shoot out of the walls and hanging off one of them is Indy's competitor. They make their way past a couple of more traps when they reach the artifact. It's on a trigger that is activated by the object's weight. Indy seemingly makes the switch but activates another trap which lowers a giant boulder. After his friend tries to betray him and dies himself, Indy escapes the temple but he's intercepted by another archaeologist named Rene Belloq (Paul Freeman). Belloq has bent the native tribe to his will and uses them to steal the artifact from Indy. Indy is able to slip away while Belloq is commanding the tribe and a chase begins. There's a seaplane waiting on the river and Indy is able to evade the tribe and hop aboard. While they're flying away, a snake crawls into the seat and Indy freaks out. He's afraid of snakes but his pilot tells him to show a little backbone.
There's so much I could say about Raiders of the Lost Ark. But what makes this movie so special to me is that it's the best integration of really cool action scenes with hilarious comedic moments that I've ever seen. I'll talk about the characters more later but with this movie Indy will get into some intense gunfights or fistfights, or he'll be trying to escape a trap and he'll trip or get socked in the jaw or slip up on the weight of an artifact and set off another trap. It's kind of beautiful to watch how seamless it is and I laugh a lot every time I watch this movie. I think every action/adventure movie tries to do that and most of them succeed but I feel like this is by far the movie that does it best.
Moving to the characters, I mentioned in the opening paragraph that Indy is my favourite action hero of all time. For me this is true because his character works on many levels. Of course he's a professor first and he always comes across as knowledgeable of his surroundings but he also works as a badass action hero. He overcomes odds through work with his gun, his whip and more importantly his fists. Lastly, he's not perfect like a James Bond type spy, he's constantly screwing up or almost dying, only getting by through a combination of luck and help from his friends. Marion is absolutely no slouch either. She's fully capable, she owns a bar and is a drinking champ, she greets Indy by punching him in the face and she's responsible for getting him out of a couple of jams. They feel organic together and the romance between them is played just right. Sallah is really underrated, he's a funny and helpful sidekick and John Rhys-Davies is so great playing him. Denholm Elliot is good in his brief appearance. Speaking quickly about the villains, Belloq is actually a solid adversary. He strikes the balance of villainous yet understated perfectly. I find him to be less maniacally evil and more just an @$$%^*& who piggybacks off of Indy's success.
The Indy trilogy really shows how great of an actor Harrison Ford is. He's one of the better actors of his generation and I think he's the template for the blockbuster action hero. He can perform in any genre and he quietly helps make the movie as awesome as it is. Without him, I don't know if these movies would work as well as they do.
With this being an adventure/action movie the set pieces are exciting and provide the thrills that you're looking for in this genre. From dodging dangerous traps to dealing with some frightening parts of the animal kingdom, all of the action scenes are fun to watch and are extremely entertaining. I would also add that the entire trilogy travels to some cool locations and add to the mystery surrounding some of the supernatural elements of this franchise.
Some people consider Raiders to be the movie that helped define the modern action/adventure movie. I would agree, I don't have a ton of experience with older adventure movies but you can see touches of this movie in films even today. Even with some of the theories about the plot today, to me this movie is perfect and I can't recommend it highly enough.