My Movie Review on Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom · 4:16pm Aug 19th, 2020
Greetings, my friends.
This is your jolly film, TV show, and episode reporter here with another review.
Today, I'm gonna give you guys my take of the second film of the Indiana Jones series: "The Temple of Doom".
Here's the summary of it:
Taking place before "Raiders of the Lost Ark", Indiana Jones finds himself embroiled in an adventure in India. Accompanied by a Chinese boy named Short Round and a nightclub singer named Willie Scott, Jones is asked by desperate villagers to retrieve a mystical stone and rescue the village's children from an evil cult.
Will he succeed? Or will he fail?
As I previously stated in my review for "Raiders of the Lost Ark", I had never seen this film at all before deciding to make an analysis of it. Before I watched it while it was on Netflix, though, many of my family members had often voiced their distaste of it. Coming from a guy who finally saw the film for himself, I can hardly blame them.
Much of the fault for it all definitely goes to Steven Spielberg's direction for this movie, the story by George Lucas, and the screenplay by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz.
I will admit that the musical number at the beginning was fun, and there was some snappy dialogue here and there. However, from the very start of this movie, I could hardly make heads or tails on what was going on or what this movie was about. It was largely because the filmmakers didn't give the movie solid ground to help audiences get into it, and the way everything was executed felt like a bunch of scrambled plot pieces. What's more, much of the humor that was incorporated was either witless or mean-spirited, and the dark and violent tone the film had made things unsettling more than entertaining. There were even so many disgusting moments that were awfully disturbing, such as the room full of bugs.
The character of Willie Scott was also what I'd like to call the most pointless addition to the franchise. Minus the big number she led at the intro, she hardly had any meaningful purpose other than to be some soulless combination of an unnecessary comic relief and love interest for Indiana Jones. The amount of screaming, yelling, and whining that she did was annoyingly infuriating, and she was dumb and completely unlikable. Overall, her existence was something I have constantly questioned since seeing the film.
To top it all off, most of the new characters outside of Short Round and Willie were largely unmemorable, and there was hardly much in the ways of character development too.
The one thing I will admit is that there were some elements of the film that I enjoyed.
I literally can't deny that Harrison Ford's performance as Indiana Jones was awesome. Every step of the way, I've noticed how surprisingly committed and into it he was for the role, and he had all of the best lines in the film. Likewise, despite how out of nowhere the character of Short Round was, I enjoyed his lovable personality and presence throughout the movie. The chemistry and bond between Jones and Shorty was also really fun to watch, and pretty much what I'd classify as one of the saving graces.
In the end, "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" isn't something I believe should be wiped out from existence, but...it's not a film that I'd want to go rushing to the store for either.
So, I rate "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" two out of five stars.
Temple of Doom is an odd one. Much of the darkness is a reflection of the fact that Spielberg's marriage was falling apart at the time, and the weirdness of the bug sequences has something of Screaming Mad George's work to it (he did the effects on 1990's Bugs amongst other things).
Curiously, the negative reaction to the violence and dark content prompted the MPAA to introduce the PG-13 rating, given similar complaings surrounding Gremlins.
Interestingly enough, the portrayal of Hinduism has often been cited due to Spielberg or Lucas going through a nasty divorce at the time. But yeah, I like the film, but it was one of the weakest of the trilogy. Apparently the novelization implies Mola Rahm himself was brainwashed.
Also, as the meal the Rajah and co serve Indy doesn't fit with Hindu or Indian cuisine at all, it's believed, I believe the book even confirms this, they were trying to get the foreigners to leave by disguising them.
I recently watched this one for the first time. Definitely not on the level of RotLA or TLC. I never finished TKotCS.
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Much like Jurassic Park 3, I find Temple of Doom my least favorite sequel of the series, but it is a fun movie. And I agree with your review.
To me it is one good film simply for nostalgic sake
This is actually one of my favorites. Mostly because it was my favorite movie to play in Lego Indiana Jones. I loved the esoteric elements in it. Death traps, dark magic, underground cultists, lava temples, sacrifices, mind control, voodoo, slaves, mines, cart chases, guns, swords, floods, a battle on a cut rope bridge...! If there was ever an adventure movie with awesome elements, it'd be this one.
I admit, Willie can get annoying, but that was kind of the point. No one else can tolerate her either. And she does actually get some really good moments that I genuinely enjoy. And I never saw any problems with Short Round either. The guy was loyal and headstrong and did all he could. He can't help that he's nine years old. He was also good in The Goonies.
And the humor? It was actually kind of great.
"We. Are going. To DIE!"
"Water! Water! Wat... Water! Water!!!"
"There are two dead people down here!" "There are going to be two dead people in here! Hurry!" "I've just about had it with you two!"
And Mola Ram giving a spooky laugh as he rolls out of sight. Like, come on. That's pretty awesome.
Temple of Doom feels like it really wanted to be the sort of movie that pays homage to an action comic.
Since Jones isn't an Action Hero, it feels like an oddity in the series when I watch it as an adult.
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Funny thing, really.
I recently started playing the first LEGO Indiana Jones game after getting an XBox for my birthday. The newest levels I’m currently on are the ones in “The Temple of Doom” story, and they’re pretty fun. I have found Willie Scott to be handy in some ways, mostly because her scream can break glass in order to access a treasure or object, but overall...she’s still my least favorite female lead in the Indiana Jones franchise, because playing her reminds me too much of why I dislike her. I also didn’t like the amount of screaming the other woman running around in the first level were making, because it got annoying after just a few seconds.
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You probably didn't know this but the guy at the Shanghai Airport was Dan Aykroyd