Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is a 1989 adventure film directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Harrison Ford and Sean Connery. Is the last entry in the original trilogy and an evident improvement upon its weak predecessors.
The plot follows Jones’s search for the holy grail and his team up with his father played by Sean Connery. Now granted, the story has many issues as before. The romance and sex angle is so frustrating once again and very annoying and not to mention incredibly cliched. It also has many silly sequences as expected and the action is overwhelming. However, it is not as overwhelming as before and the whole first half is genuinely refreshing in its slow pace and drama angle. Also, the protagonist is not as annoying as in previous films and the duo established here is solid. Yes, it is typical and highly familiar and an expected direction from Spielberg, but it also lends to much needed character development and even a bit of emotion, although not too much. It is structurally and story wise a very uneven movie, but also way more interesting and enjoyable this time around.
The characters are so-so. As I said before, Indiana Jones is much more realistic and much more likable here. He is still annoying and arrogant at times, but thankfully to a lesser extent and his relationship with his father provides some small laughs, albeit predictable ones. As for the father, he is similar in some ways to Indie, but he is also distinguished somewhat as a different character and he is sympathetic to some extent. Their relationship is familiar, but still a highlight of the movie. And as for the love interest, she is once again a bad female character, but thankfully the movie is not as sexist as its predecessor.
Yes, everything about this movie screams better. It is much better than ‘Temple of Doom‘ and it is way better and more enjoyable than overrated ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark‘. It is a film that trumps its predecessors in a great way, but still not enough to make it more than a solid flick.
The acting is really good. Ford improved his acting chops this time around and Connery is amusing in his role and he did a really good job in a very atypical comedic role for him. Speaking of comedy, it is still not funny, but at least they tried harder here and some moments are mildly amusing. The directing is better and the pacing, although very problematic, is still okay as the first half is much slower and lacks the stupid action. But later the action gets annoying really fast. But the whole third act is the highlight with a really interesting story for once and a rather intriguing adventure and mystery to it.
The imagery is more memorable here and the film is well filmed for sure. I liked its adventurous spirit that thankfully got in front of the action here. The tone is okay and the dialogue is more mature, although some lines are just awful. It is definitely a smarter film, but still not that clever, especially when you compare it to non-blockbusters. The score is repetitive, just repeated from previous entries. The film certainly has a genuinely more intriguing and memorable storyline, but that is still undone by its tendency to go into silly and action-packed territory.
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is an evident improvement upon its weak predecessors. It still has some annoying scenes, it still has a bad female character, way too much action and is wildly uneven, but the duo between Ford And Connery is amusing, the story is much more engaging and even intriguing in its third act and it is just much more enjoyable and interesting than the previous entries.
