INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (1984)

INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM (1984)

Tagline: If adventure has a name... it must be Indiana Jones.

(Action, Adventure, Doom) [PG]

You call him Dr. Jones, doll!

In this one it’s 1935 (a year before the events of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK) and Indiana Jones crash lands in India with his friend Short Round and a nightclub singer named Wilhelmina "Willie" Scott who is with them reluctantly. Upon arriving in a poor desolate village Indy discovers the dark secret as to why the village is under such pestilence and misery. An evil cult is stealing their children and more importantly has taken a rounded stone the village believes is the key to its vitality. Indy, Willie, and Short Round head into the Temple Of Doom for all the wrong reasons. Can they overcome the cult and return the stone to the village or be tempted by the fates of fortune and glory? 

My first thought on this is I cannot believe it wasn’t rated “R”. There is a dude that rips another guy's heart out and shows it to you still beating. I mean, this scene is straight out of a horrifying slasher flick and yet this thing isn’t even considered PG-13 or R? Bloody hell? 

As a kid seeing this in theaters I guess I didn’t quite grasp how dark this thing was. Yes, writer George Lucas and director Steven Speilberg tried to lighten it up with some jokes during very serious moments, but that really didn’t help. I mean there are human sacrifices going on here, a scene where they are eating monkey brains, just a crapload of bugs, kids getting whipped, etc. Now looking back, I can see more clearly why this thing is generally regarded as the worst or second-worst of the series through the first 4 installments. 

I did like Kate Capshaw (who played Willie Scott) a LOT better than I liked Karen Allen in RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK. She is screaming a lot in this movie, but I can empathize with what she’s going through. When I say a lot of screaming, I think there were like over 70 scenes where she is just losing her mind.  Ke Huy Quan was fantastic as “Short Round”, and I also really enjoyed his role in THE GOONIES, so I felt this was a perfect fit regarding comedic relief. I mean confident sassy little kids can be funny and he was. It didn’t fix the seriousness of this movie, but it was definitely welcome. Harrison Ford was great in this acting-wise, but there are some creepy moments where you are just like…” what did Indy just do?” I also have to compliment Amrish Puri for being one of the creepiest 80s villains Mola Ram. He was excellent in the role. I mean, creepy, but excellent.

Where this movie succeeds is in the opening sequence. In fact, the opening sequence of this movie is actually my favorite of the series. It’s when they get to India that everything just comes to a crawl and gets all dark and dreary. While the scenes in the mine attached to the Temple of Doom are exciting, none of the last 3 acts in this movie are anywhere near as awesome as I was hoping. The script and lines for Indy and Short Round are pretty iconic and I really loved about 90% of this flick regarding that. 

The failures in this thing are just that it lacked the charm and fun of an adventure film and turned more into a weird downer. I guess at least Stephen Speilberg was able to meet his future wife Kate Capshaw on the set, so even this nightmare tale had a happy ending that went beyond the movie's finale. 

Overall I have to give this one a 4 out of 7 but it’s mostly riding on the nostalgia of the time for me. It’s solid filmmaking, but a terrible Indiana Jones story. There were honestly about 15 or 16 “Indiana Jones Choose Your Own Adventure” books better than this. 

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