Good- but vastly overrated, even back then...

Rating: 8/10 (8 November 2014)

The opening scenes of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK had me convinced we were seeing something special- the discovery of the vine-overgrown temple ruins, the penetration to the heart of the temple and the theft of the golden statue, the subsequent hair-raising escape from the self-destructing structure... it was all fantastic. It was at that point that the movie began to self-destruct. It went from being a fast-paced action film to an uneven love story cum religious tract. Granted, a good many of the serials that RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK borrows from (sometimes, shot for shot) aren't as accomplished overall- but, back in the day, those 12 to 15 chapter serials were done for a lot less than the cost of the titles for a Big Budget effort like this. There ARE a good many sequences throughout the movie, but there are also a good many less-than-impressive sequences and lapses in logic and unexplained plot points that remain (one of my pet peeves has always been the idea that Jones somehow managed to ride a submerged Nazi submarine halfway around the world, a point that was taken up in an episode of THE BIG BANG THEORY, but I've never seen the missing scene that allegedly explains the discrepancy).