Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

I actually saw Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade before I saw Temple of Doom because, at the time, Temple of Doom was considered too frightening for the young me. Being raised in a strictly Roman Catholic household, I have also seen the final installment several more times than the other two, largely in part due to the film’s reverent consideration of Christian lore. Spielberg has said often that he made Last Crusade as way of penance for the gruesome, pagan milieu of Temple of Doom. This most certainly explains the considerable absence of the raw, rough feel of the previous two installments. Last Crusade has been varnished and whitewashed not only in content but in the look of the film – it doesn’t have the gritty, dusty, shadowed coarseness so appropriate for the dirty adventures of a rugged archaeologist. The four year gap has lessened Spielberg’s talents at evoking the right visual texture for Indiana Jones, a man often covered in spider webs, sweat, earth, and blood. Last Crusade is too polished, too fine, too sterile in the way it looks, which in turn, affects the way it feels. Where Raiders and Doom felt like they were covered in the soil and the overgrowth of the locations they were set in, Last Crusade too often looks like it was set on a soundstage. Even when Indy and Dr. Elsa Schneider (Alison Doody) descend into the grimy catacombs and collect smudges and dampness on their appearance, the cinematography does not properly capture the texture of the surroundings. It is in watching Last Crusade that one realizes how important the settings were in Raiders and Doom, both often ensconced in the swamps, thickets, and wilderness. Spielberg, in his success, has further and further secured himself in the comfort of silk interiors, and in returning to the story of a man who scrounges through vegetation and muck for a living, is preposterously reluctant to get his hands dirty.

However, once one accepts the fact that Last Crusade is not from the same template of the two cinematic classics that preceded it, there are lots of features that maintain it as a worthy addition, specifically the humor.





Ironically, the very thing that inhibits me from embracing Last Crusade as zealously as the other two is the very thing that makes it so enjoyable and pleasant, the light-hearted breeziness. It zips along with a lively good humor, while offering action sequences seemingly more so out of obligation than out of genuine interest in exploring (not good in a movie about an explorer). It is not until the tank, horse, and truck mayhem near the end that the action deactivates from autopilot, but when it does, it is enthralling.

But back to the breeziness; it is puzzling that the very thing that makes the film lose points with me is what makes the film move along faster than the other two. All three films ended with me wanting more, but Last Crusade was over minutes after it started and left me feeling more than satisfied with the poignant coda it graced on the trilogy. Funny, that.

In the end, I think Last Crusade was an essential addition. I would rather a great sequel to a great original remain untrilogized than to slap on a rote and soulless third film simply to make it an official trilogy (I’m looking at you, Coppola) but Last Crusade has got plenty of soul, despite being more than a little rote here and there.

Grade: A-


* A review of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

* A review of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)