INDIANA JONES AND THE RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK (1981)
Tagline: The Return of the Great Adventure.
(Action, Adventure, Snakes, why did it have to be snakes) [PG]
Oh, Marcus. What are you trying to do, scare me? You sound like my mother. We've known each other for a long time. I don't believe in magic, a lot of superstitious hocus pocus. I'm going after a find of incredible historical significance, you're talking about the boogie man. Besides, you know what a cautious fellow I am.
So when this thing came out I was just turning 8 years old. I am pretty sure I didn’t see this in its first theatrical run, but instead caught it on video, DVD, etc, hundreds of times after it came out. INDIANA JONES AND THE RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK is so respected it got put into the National Film Registry by the United States Library of Congress in 1999. To this day it’s still one of the top 500 or so movies ever made and that is saying a LOT.
In this one, the freakin Nazis are after the Ark Of The Covenant which in real life was likely destroyed by the Babylonians when they looted and burned the temple of Jerusalem in 2 Chronicles 36:18-19. However, for the purposes of this story it was secretly buried in a tomb and archeological professor Indiana Jones is tasked with finding it before the Nazis. It is thought that whichever army marches with the Ark before it will have the power to rule the world.
Tidbit – that last mention we get of an Ark is in Revelation 11:19. It is also the Ark Of the Covenant, but likely represents God’s new covenant…Christ’s return.
The sets in this movie are amazing and there was a lot of time and effort involved since this was in the days before we really had CGI. The effects were practical and effective. In one scene where a head explodes they actually had to put some fire in front of it to make it less scary to avoid an R rating, mainly because in those days if you wanted a monster hit and a monster box office you typically weren’t doing R rated films. Every scene is deliberate and either add superb depth to the film or has you at the edge of your seat wondering how Doctor Jones (played by Harrison Ford) is going to get out of whatever cliffhanging situation he’s in. From swordplay to fistfights, to people’s faces melting off, to booby traps, this movie is the quintessential action-adventure flick every movie of this type is measured up against.
If you can’t tell I loved this thing as a kid and to this day it holds up against any flick out there. Ford is brilliant as Indiana Jones, but this flick is loaded with talent. I will say Karen Allen who plays Marion is a great actress, but this is seriously the only role I have ever liked her in. John Rhys-Davies however who plays Sallah is pretty much legendary in every damn movie he’s in. He was even awesome in “Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made” which is just a documentary about the making of a shot for shot fan film called RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK: THE ADAPTATION. I also have to give my hats off to Paul Freeman who plays Belloq. This dude is like the gold standard for evil bad guys, kind of like the Jack Dorsey of the ’80s.
Cinematically INDIANA JONES AND THE RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK is still a master class in filmmaking. I don’t want to say it’s the best film ever made, but like I said earlier it's way the heck up there like you would need a ladder just to climb up to the level of awesome this movie is.
I can’t in good faith give it anything other than a 7 out of 7.
GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF DIMENSION FILMS AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY.
Comments
Post a Comment