Raiders of the Lost Ark:One Of The Most Entertaining Adventure Film Ever Made

Rating: 10/10 (14 January 2012)

Raiders of the Lost Ark is an action-adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by George Lucas, and starring Harrison Ford. It is the first film in the Indiana Jones franchise. It pits Indiana Jones against a group of Nazis who search for the Ark of the Covenant because Adolf Hitler believes it will make their army invincible. The film co- stars Karen Allen as Indiana's former lover, Marion Ravenwood; Paul Freeman as Indiana's nemesis, French archaeologist René Belloq; John Rhys-Davies as Indiana's sidekick, Sallah; and Denholm Elliott as Indiana's colleague, Marcus Brody.
Indiana Jones is no ordinary archaeologist. When we first see him, he is somewhere in the Peruvian jungle in 1936, running a booby-trapped gauntlet to fetch a solid-gold idol. He loses this artifact to his chief rival, a French archaeologist named Belloq, who then prepares to kill our hero. In the first of many serial-like escapes, Indy eludes Belloq by hopping into a convenient plane. So, then: is Indiana Jones afraid of anything? Yes, snakes. The next time we see Jones, he's a soft-spoken, bespectacled professor. He is then summoned from his ivy-covered environs by Marcus Brody to find the long-lost Ark of the Covenant. The Nazis, it seems, are already searching for the Ark, which the mystical- minded Hitler hopes to use to make his stormtroopers invincible. But to find the Ark, Indy must first secure a medallion kept under the protection of Indy's old friend Abner Ravenwood, whose daughter, Marion (Karen Allen), evidently has a "history" with Jones. Whatever their personal differences, Indy and Marion become partners in one action- packed adventure after another, ranging from wandering the snake pits of the Well of Souls to surviving the pyrotechnic unearthing of the sacred Ark.
A joint project of Hollywood prodigies George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, with a script co-written by Lawrence Kasdan and Philip Kaufman, among others, Raiders of the Lost Ark is not so much a movie as a 115-minute thrill ride.But this is the kind of movie that, even today, audiences immediately fall in love with. It has all the right ingredients: a smart script, a likable hero, a dash of romance, more than a touch of comedy, and a lot of fast-paced action.Also,it is one of the most deliriously funny, ingenious and stylish American adventure movies ever made.Added to that,the commercially successful film holds up as a spectacle film, spooky fun house ride and rollicking adventure yarn. Steven Spielberg was, then and now, the finest director of grand-scale Hollywood blockbusters.Obviously,it is one of the most indelible adventure films in cinematic history.