My Review of "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade"

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. When I watched it again while I was in my 20's, I was surprised that it held up so well. Now in 2022 I wasn't too sure how this 1989 movie would fare today. When I reviewed the other Indiana Jones movies I was pleasantly surprised at how well they've kept up. This movie pretty much gave me the similar impressions as the other movies I've checked out.

The movie starts out with a flashback. It goes back to the times when Indiana was a teenager. He and his friend discover archeological thieves in some cave. Even back then Indiana had a deep respect for archeological finds. This first sequence is full of fun action. It harkens back to the Raiders of the Lost Ark movie.

It's nice to see how they can explain so much about Indiana from this whole opening scene. They call back to his fear of snakes and even explain the scar he has on his chin. This whole sequence has a purpose though. The film is trying to convey the influences in Indiana's life. His father was madly obsessed with finding the holy grail. The thieves that he steals from even influenced him greatly.

Then we go back to his life in 1938. He's still getting himself into trouble because he's Indiana Jones of course. There is a bit of a lull when they're trying to explain the story of the holy grail. We have this whole conversation of Indiana's dad's obsession with the grail and what the next steps are.

I honestly don't know too many people that pay full attention to the explanations of why he has to go to certain places in order to find what he needs to find. As viewers we generally just go with it and hope for the best. They don't really need to explain it that much.

Although some of his explorations are tepidly interesting the real energy of this movie comes when Indiana finally encounters his father. The fun just starts to ramp up immediately. There are jokes in there that I would not have understood when I was younger. Today it's pretty fun how nuanced they placed the sexual innuendo in the movie.

Even the action sequences become a lot more fun. There's a lot more comedy involved with some of the action. They still have that sense of urgency that we see from the other movies. This time they played off the character of Indiana's father, Henry.

Henry is not a fighter. He's an old man and is mortified by violence. Obviously he will defend himself if his life or his son's life is at stake but he prefers not to use force. You'll see him clumsily use guns or weapons and Indiana having to save the situation all the time.

There's even a laugh out loud moment when one of the henchmen's punches Indiana. Since Indiana and Henry are tide together back to back the force of the punch to Indiana's face results in his head smacking Henry's head. It's a two for one deal for the henchman. This movie is littered with fun antics like this.

I also love the banter between father and son. They really build up the relationship between the two really well and that's what really carries this movie. A movie with Indiana alone would be fun but the fact that they matched these two together made it a riot.

As for the special effects, they are quite dated. You can tell easily when they used green screens for our heroes. There is a lot of green screen but there are a lot of practical effects as well. The opening scene with young Indiana takes place on a train filled with circus animals. All of the animals look like paper mâché puppets. It's kind of awkward to see them like that now but it was the 80's and effects weren't as great back then.

There's also a whole load of scenes that don't make sense anymore. Characters seem to be deaf because they won't notice their rooms being annihilated while they're in the next room. Their choice of clothing is also curious. I'm surprised that character Elsa was able to do so much in her skirt and heels. A lot of these antics just wouldn't fly in today's movies but there's a sense of innocence in this movie that makes you not want to think about it too much.

Overall, I still had a lot of fun with this movie. I'm not surprised that this movie held up. You really have to turn the other cheek to some of the problematic scenes that I mentioned because there's quite a few of them. I have to admit that I have a nostalgic bias to this movie though. To me this movie is still an 8 out of 10. I had a grand old time re-watching this movie and I'm sure it won't be the last time I re-watch this movie.