"It's not the years honey, it's the mileage".

Rating: 9/10 (26 June 2011)

Thirty years on and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" still packs a punch as a rousing adventure movie. From the opening boulder attack to the exciting Nazi truck chase scene, the film takes the viewer from one harrowing encounter to the next without skipping a beat, presenting it's protagonist, Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) as the adventure serial hero come to life fifty years after the genre was born. Exotic locales and desert sands create a foreign mystique that have often been duplicated, but never topped in American action flicks.
I recall seeing the movie when it first came out, and how fresh and dramatic it appeared on screen at the time. When Indy was confronted by the sword wielding Arab and simply shot him, I remember thinking - yes, how sensible and effective. No overblown theatrics or inane hand to hand combat, just drop the villain where he stands and get on with it. One of the problems I always had with confrontations like this as a kid was the back and forth dialog between the hero and the bad guy before they actually square off. Not so with Indy, a practical combatant when it comes to saving one's neck.
And how about that snake pit? That scene easily passes the test as one of the creepiest sequences going. Doesn't just the sight of a simple garter snake slithering on the lawn startle the heck out of you? So picture yourself in a den with hundreds around you - heart attack material right there for sure.
You know, I've seen easily a few hundred Westerns in my time, and one of the signature moves of that genre is the buckboard chase scene made famous by second unit director Yakima Canutt. It's the one where he drops down underneath a stagecoach or wagon and holds on to the underside, making his way to the back of the coach before letting go. Indy does it here during the truck chase scene, and the first thing I thought was what a great tribute to Yak that was. Very well done, requiring perfect timing and nerves of steel.
Since this first film in the series came out, I've seen and enjoyed the others, but as is the case most of the time, it's the original that holds sway as the best for being the one that started it all. Indiana Jones will remain a cinema icon for a long time, and he might have given us all an insight into the freshness and originality of his character when in another one of his desperate moments, he casually replies - "I'm making this up as I go"!