The Most Fun To Ever Be Had At The Movies...

Rating: 10/10 (15 November 2013)

My number one favourite movie of all time, and pretty much the pinnacle of adventure Cinema. "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is a film that no matter how many times it re-runs on Television, I can sit down and watch it indefinitely. It is a marvel piece of cinema that was brought to life by two of Hollywood's biggest names, Steven Spielberg & George Lucas (Director Philip Kaufman was originally set to direct before Spielberg, he is credited as a co-writer on the story). Both were inspired by the old film serials of the 1930's and 1940's, where adventurers will survive and escape virtually all kinds of in-escapable peril. Harrison Ford is in his prime as the famous fictional architect Indiana Jones, whose journeys would involve bizarre riddles and strange hieroglyphics that would usually result in disasters of biblical proportions.
At the very beginning of the movie, we're in the middle of a jungle exhibition with a mood defining score from John Williams and a younger, thinner Alfred Molina. Suddenly we enter a tomb and already the film has set its entire mood and expectations within minutes. Suddenly we see what little of Jones's regular life is like as a College professor, and in no time we see him off on another adventure searching for the legendary Ark of the Covenant (Built by the Israeli's to hold the fragments of The Ten Commandments). This sees Indy travelling to Nepal to meet his old flame Marion (Karen Allen), who may hold the key to finding the Ark. Unaware that both of them are being followed and hunted by Nazi Gestapos sent by Hitler to collect the Ark for himself, this revelation pairs Indy and Marion together as they head for Cairo to find it first.
Among the highlights of the movie as said before is the cave, the bar fight in Nepal, the famous market chase and the undeniably funny "Gun to the Swordfight" scene (Ford had diarrhoea). All these scenes and so many others continuously loop in the memories of my brain. Even the ending of the film is so famous, it has been more than parodied to death in recent Pop-Culture.
The special effects and visual style in this film are truly a lost art. From the wax melting faces and giant fibreglass boulders, to breathing streets of Cairo and dimly lit dungeons meant everything and anything could come out at you anytime, anywhere. Among the talent behind this movie, Joe Johnston won an Academy Award for his effects work and would later turn to directing. His most recent feature being "Captain America: The First Avenger" (2011), which has a wonderful throwback to "Raiders" ("And the Fuhrer digs for trinkets in the desert"). Michael Bay was the storyboard artist who thought the movie was going to be horrible, then he finally saw it and loved it enough to become a film-maker himself (Yet he really needs to learn a thing or two).
Even now as I write and dive into this movie, I can't fully explain why it's all such a gem to me. Adventure films before and after never really reached this kind of magnitude, not even in the sequels. No matter when and where it's on, I just have to sit and watch it. All in all, you're along for the ride and once it has started there's no going back. I have been researching thoroughly through the history of Cinema, and whilst I have found many better treasures among Japan, Sweden and Italy etc. "Raiders of the Lost Ark", even after all I've said there's no possible way to fully describe what the experience meant to me. But why it means so much, summed up in one sentence is: "One of the most imaginative thrill ride movies ever made, and that's what I consider Cinema and story telling all about".
Final Verdict: I loved it the first time I saw it, and I'll most likely continue to love it till the day I die. It's not the best film ever made, but I'll never be able to hate it. 10/10.