Devil's advocate

Rating: 9/10 (23 March 2012)

Indiana Jones, Professor of Archaeology but with an adventurous bent, finds himself involved with trying to track down the hiding place of the Ark Of The Covenant. Unfortunately, so are a batch of Nazis.
Spielberg's homage to the pulp serials of the 40s was an enormous success, and deservedly so - it is non-stop action, adventure and spectacle from start to finish, laced with humour, character and what were, for the time, state of the art miniature and photographic special effects which still stand up well in the digital age.
Here is where I am prepared to go against the conventional wisdom. What it was not was high art. The material it homages was cheap, disposable, ephemeral (and was intended to be) and the homage is accurate: the fact that, in this case, the material is delivered with thought and care and high production values does not mean that the pulp origins of the source material have suddenly moved from sow's ear to silk purse.
Don't let that spoil your enjoyment, though!