Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom
By 1984, it was obvious that things were long overdue for a sequel to the groundbreaking action adventure opus that was Raiders Of The Lost Ark. With Steven Spielberg back in the director’s chair, George Lucas tagging along again as producer, and Harrison Ford being the most essential component returning as Indy himself, the three admirably set out to make something that retained the spirit of what Indy was but yet was still considerably different in both concept and tone, managing to outdo themselves but remarkably (and very unfairly) coming up with a final product that while it was successful and well acclaimed enough at the time of its release, somehow in the 10 to 15 years afterwards it seemed to generate a rather strange outpouring of hatred towards various elements of the film by those who purported themselves to be fans of both Raiders and Last Crusade but yet for some reason this second film was considered almost positively rancid by the so called Indy fans who probably missed the goofy college campus scenes or the well known sidekick characters such as Marcus Brody and Sallah. But then again any intelligent and astute film scholar should be able to look at this one a little more closely and be able to appreciate its many finer points. For one, while Raiders suffered from some pacing issues (particularly in the middle section of the film), this one hits the ground running and never lets up with its rollercoaster pace, starting off with the excellent opening sequence showing Indy (possibly doing some more undercover operative work based on who he’s dealing with) negotiating with a Chinese gangster in a Shanghai nightclub over an artifact he’s recovered, thinking that he’s got all his bases covered only to wind up outsmarting himself, leading to a wildly slapstick chase / fight scene with blackly humorous undertones (as Indy tries to retrieve an antidote for a deadly poison he just drank) complete with ninja assassins, a death defying fall from several stories, and a blink and you miss it cameo from none other than Dan Aykroyd, easily surpassing the much lauded and legendary opening of Raiders with its giant boulder and the sight of Alfred Molina becoming a human pincushion. Then there is Ford himself as Indy, after tentatively wading his way into being the cliffhanger hero that Spielberg and Lucas wanted him to be in Raiders, now seemingly being given much more carte blanche to add more of his own personal touches to the role and thus making it completely his own as a result, giving Indy the charming yet very human quality of being an arrogant buffoon who nonetheless rarely panics and always manages to keep his wits about him in order to survive. This successful readjusting of the Indy persona into that of a bumbling yet noble fool is accentuated by the two sidekicks that he is given here (both of whom are introduced during that sensational opening scene) which is where much of the controversy seems to come from, starting with Ke Huy Quan as the chattering little Asian kid, Short Round, who comes across to many as annoying and even arrogant in his own right, but who also displays great chemistry with Ford and is pretty much a hero as well, actually managing to save Indy’s ass on a number of occasions. Then there is Kate Capshaw (Spielberg’s soon to be wife) as Willie Scott, a performance that has received so much scorn when compared to Karen Allen’s tempestuous tomboy from Raiders, but what many fail to realize is that since this character in essence is a spoiled, privileged American bimbo, much of her frightened, shrieking, screaming, constantly whining personality is more or less caused by her being completely out of her element (i.e. always being in danger instead of being waited on) which is in actuality quite REALISTIC compared to the action heroine type that Allen’s Marion was meant to be (but in truth is impossible to find in real life), but thankfully Capshaw manages to offset the negative aspects of the role by actually being breathtakingly beautiful (something the grittier Allen was not) and her love / hate chemistry with Indy is certainly spot on as we can see how Indy can put up with her bitching because he just knows in the end that he always gets the girl. The humor generated from these three is a welcome release from the rather pretentious elements of the first film (including a charming bit of romantic farce out of a 1930s comedy that ends with an abrupt, brutal attempt on Indy’s life), but before allowing it to carry away the entire film, Spielberg manages to offset the laughs with the plot and tone of the film itself, one that is a lot more darker than that of either Raiders or Last Crusade and which almost resembles that of a satanic horror movie, where our trio wind up in India and come upon a village suffering from severe drought and the loss of their children. Turns out that their elders see Indy as sort of a “chosen one” who has “fallen from the skies” (kind of a story seed planted here for Army Of Darkness) who implore Indy to quest on their behalf for a sacred, magical stone that along with their children, has been stolen away by the “greatest of evils”, a long thought extinct Thuggee cult who enslave (and whip) the children so that they work in their mines and conduct horrific human sacrifices in the name of their perverse deity, all led by a goony, maniacally grinning high priest named Mola Ram, played by renown Indian actor Amrish Puri in a turn where he at least gave it his sinister all when it comes to pure menace, and is eons better than the robotic Belloq in Raiders, all topped off with a incredibly nightmarish, almost hallucinogenic scene at the halfway mark of the film where the most controversial aspect (a victim has his heart ripped out and yet still lives while being lowered into molten lava and burned alive) may very well be imagined by those whom we later learn are lured into a spell called “The Black Sleep” which is induced by drinking some black viscous substance said to be the blood of their dark goddess, but it’s just the fact that Spielberg never directly tips us off for sure on whether this scene is actually real or just part of a nightmare (which it certainly feels like) that seemed to create so much venom amongst the fans. Certainly there are other horror / gross out elements throughout the film, including a macabre dinner scene featuring copious servings of bugs, eels, and chilled monkey brains, a cavern filled with bugs and creepy crawlies of all kinds, various scenes of children being whipped (including Short Round and Indy himself with his own bullwhip), a large sized bad guy (played by the same actor who played the ill fated German mechanic in Raiders) being stuck into a rock grinder after losing a fight to Indy, and (in the ultimate masterstroke of experimentation) Indy himself being put into The Black Sleep and temporarily becoming evil, grunting and chanting with all the rest of them as we also learn of Mola Ram’s master plan which is to bring down all other religions (including Muslims, Jews, and Christians) so that the twisted and perverted Thuggee ideology will rule the world. But Spielberg also knows that we love our action sequences, and the final 40 minutes of the movie are hard to top by any standards, with an all out brawl on the slavemasters as Indy frees the children, an absolutely mindblowing mine cart chase sequence / shootout that’s the equivalent to being on a wild rollercoaster ride (complete with possible motion sickness), and an insanely intense finale on a rickety old wooden bridge over a huge chasm where Indy does what he has to do in order to outsmart his enemies, capped off with our very happy ending and our bumbling hero nonetheless still showing us why he will always have a way with the ladies, thus displaying a very nice balance between light and dark material throughout (whereas Raiders only became horrific for its unexpected climax and threw things off entirely) and providing for us an E ticket ride that puts almost all of the modern day Hollywood action movies to shame and for good reason too, whether the so called die hard Indy fans are always wanting to trash it or not…
8/10