INDIANA JONES’ First LAST CRUSADE: Spielberg Summer 2 Continues!
Back when I was a kid, when there were a meager three Indiana Jones movies, I had to reckon with a simple fact…
…I had always found myself a little bored with INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE.
In some ways, the movie never had a chance. I had seen RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK in an actual movie theater, and it was one of those formative moments for me as a blossoming movie guy. I had caught INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM sleeping over at a friend’s house as a kid, which turned out to be a delirious experience, especially having only seen RAIDERS up to that point; every scene seemed to be crazier than the last, but it was so late at night that the movie felt like it was somehow four hours long. If you had told me I had dreamed the whole thing, I likely would have believed you.
Finally, a couple of years after that, I procured a three-tape VHS collection of the entire Indiana Jones trilogy* and it was finally time to see the story capper, the third and final Indiana Jones tale, the absolute last one we’ll ever get (it’s in the title, after all!).
*Along with a bonus fourth tape containing an episode of the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. I…never watched that one.
I put it on one night and watched it with my mom. And…I thought it was just okay! I didn’t hate it or anything, but, to be honest, I felt a little underwhelmed by it. Maybe it was because it felt a little too similar to the first one, maybe it’s because I watched it in the comfort of my own home instead of literally anywhere else, causing the moment to blend in with the infinite amount of times I had watched a movie on the family TV, but…LAST CRUSADE just didn’t stand out to me in any way, and it comfortably existed as my least favorite Indiana Jones movie.
Of course, it turns out you’re really stupid when you’re a kid. Returning to this one a couple of times over the past few years has revealed to me one of the more comfortable third entries in the history of franchise filmmaking, even as I still feel its active hesitance to do anything too alienating. Oh, and it’s also really, really funny. Like, easily the funniest of the five Indy films.
As we inch closer to the end of Spielberg Summer 2, let’s take one LAST CRUSADE with Indiana Jones this year!
INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE (1989)
Directed by: Steven Spielberg
Starring: Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Julien Glover, Denholm Elliot, Alison Doody, John Rhys-Davies
Written by: Jeffrey Boam (screenplay), George Lucas & Menno Meyjes (story)
Released: May 24, 1989
Length: 126 minutes
This time, we catch up with everyone’s favorite archeologist in 1938, and this time, he’s on the case to find two treasures. First, he’s after the Holy Grail, the famous cup that Jesus drank from during the Last Supper. Second, and more importantly, he’s also on the hunt for Henry Jones Sr., his father who has gone missing during his own pursuit for the Grail. Along the way, Indiana Jones will meet back up with old friends like Marcus Brody and Sallah, as well as face new adversaries, like the treacherous Elsa Schneider, the Nazi-sympathizing Walter Donovan, and maybe…just maybe…Adolf Hitler himself. What a fitting last crusade this is shaping up to be!
As alluded to in the intro, there’s a strong element of apology weaved into LAST CRUSADE’s fabric in the wake of the controversy surrounding the darker and more violent content of TEMPLE OF DOOM five years prior, with as many references and structural similarities to RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK thrown in as it could fit. Indiana Jones teaching a classroom full of love-smitten girls*! An adventure to recover a crucial Christian architect! The return of Marcus Brody! The return of Sallah! The return of Marion Ravenwood….iiiinn the next one! Hell, they even bring back that famous “moving thick red line on a map to indicate the characters are traveling!” thing that was missing from the last one.
*And, to my eyes, at least one male? Don’t get me wrong, I get it. I was just surprised, is all.
In many ways, there’s a logic to this mea culpa philosophy, a line of thinking that can best be described by the “Sorry. Im sorry. Im trying to remove it” dril tweet. TEMPLE OF DOOM has a more-or-less redeemed reputation nowadays, and it did make a ton of money (although, crucially, less than both RAIDERS and LAST CRUSADE), but it was also at the center of a firestorm regarding the content in movies “these days” and basically kicked off the PG-13 era of Hollywood. I get that, now that Spielberg and Lucas were in better head spaces at the end of the decade, there would be a desire to go back to what worked.
In other ways, though, this has always made me feel bad for LAST CRUSADE. I don’t like when movie franchises feel the need to apologize for big swings taken by previous installments*, if only because it always comes off a little desperate. Movie sequels do this kind of thing all the time, burning valuable screen time evoking the original movie (the most egregious example is Jack Sparrow’s very first line in the second PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, a hamfisted redo of the “why is the rum gone” joke that everyone liked in the initial film). I never like it! TEMPLE OF DOOM is easily my least favorite of the first three Indy movies, but that’s only because of a crucial failure in casting, not because of its shift in tone and mood. Redirecting in the face of controversy would suck some of the ambition out of the Indiana Jones franchise from then on (although Four and Five would admittedly take some big swings of its own; aliens and time travel, anybody?).
*It should be noted, though, that viewed through this prism and this prism only, the original three INDIANA JONES movies resemble the philosophical arc of the STAR WARS sequel trilogy: an initial movie that makes a big splash, a follow-up that goes in a completely different direction, followed by an endcap that tries to resemble the first movie as much as possible under threat of execution.
It even feels like it’s apologizing for TEMPLE OF DOOM’s refusal to act like a proper prequel. This time, LAST CRUSADE does that “long-running franchise” thing of going back to the past and showing us how our main character became who he is, the main pitfall TEMPLE OF DOOM avoided for the most part. We get an extended prologue of young Indiana Jones (played by 19 year old River Phoenix!) on his first little adventure, gaining his famous hat and fear of snakes along the way. By all accounts, this is a sequence that should cause major eyerolls for me, it standing for everything I find very exhausting about sequels and all.
But…I kind of like it. I mean, yes, finally learning how Indiana Jones got his fucking hat* is of no interest to me and never will be, but I think this opening chapter is actually quite fun, full of energy, full of that patented Spielberg-ian storytelling-through-action style. Yes, all that “oh, he’s using the whip for the first time!” stuff is there if that’s what you’re interested in, but the whole thing is really more in service of establishing something that hadn’t even been hinted at in this series up to this point: Jones’ relationship with his father. Speaking of….
*It turns out…someone gave it to him. Whoah!
I feel like I’m in no real danger of putting too fine a point on this next statement: Sean Connery as Indiana’s father is one of the most inspired pieces of casting in the entire franchise. He fits into the series so well, to the point where it’s hard to imagine any Indiana Jones movie without him (although most of them don’t). Connery was in an interesting period of his career, having recently come out of a two-year exile after the production frustrations with his off-the-books James Bond comeback, 1983’s NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN. He was riding the wave of films like HIGHLANDER and THE UNTOUCHABLES, the latter of which earned him a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. It seemed the perfect time for Spielberg to get as close to a life-long dream (directing a Bond film) as he will likely ever get; directing the guy who defined the role for many generations.
He’s so fucking good in this. I dunno. It’s hard to put it in any other words than that. He’s warm and funny where he needs to be, vulnerable in other moments and, most importantly, is able to exactly equal Harrison Ford in screen presence without ever upstaging him. It’s a remarkably comfortable performance from someone who would sometimes be unwilling to give his best towards the end (compare him in this to something like LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN, where he is providing third-rate material a performance it deserves). Hell, one of the funnier lines in the movie (“She talks in her sleep”) was apparently an ad-lib from Connery himself, a testament to how open he was to being playful with this role.
Speaking of funny lines and moments, I think the most remarkable thing about LAST CRUSADE is how funny it really is. I suspect this was a conscious choice, a further attempt at distancing itself from TEMPLE OF DOOM. But, it’s one thing to decide to be light and funny, it’s a whole other thing to actually achieve it. LAST CRUSADE contains two whole scoops of bits and business, and they pretty much all work. Henry Sr. accidentally shooting the airplane tail. Harrison Ford doing a fucking Scottish accent. Indiana ending up with a genuine autograph from Hitler himself. My two favorite moments, though, consists of one I had always remembered, and one that I hadn’t.
One I remembered: as Henry and son end up in the clutches of the Nazis, there is this beautiful build-up from (and zoom-in on) Indy about how Marcus Brody, intrepid and loyal friend, is in custody of the diary pages they seek, how he’s too far ahead of them, too connected, too smooth, too familiar with any and all local customs, and will be able to disappear before the Nazis ever know what’s happening. The cut to Brody lost in the streets of Alexandretta, just kind of wandering around, is maybe the funniest moment in a Spielberg movie.
One that I hadn’t: there’s a moment where Indy and Henry are being chased through an airport. As we watch their assailants run through the station, we eventually pan over to two people rather conspicuously holding up newspapers in front of their faces. “Aha! That old trick”, we think to ourselves. As they run by, we assume Indy and Henry are now in the clear. And they are; the reason we know this is because they emerge from the staircase behind these two newspaper guys, who end up really just being two guys reading newspapers! It’s such a dumb joke, but it’s also so delightfully playful.
I think this willing levity is why LAST CRUSADE is able to get away with stuff that normally grates me when they appear in other films. Yes, it’s trying to get the taste of the last one out of its mouth, and yes, it provides hamfisted lore drops* because that’s just what you do in a franchise. But (and this is crucial), it’s done in the spirit of fun, as opposed to abject reverence towards the property. It’s not trying to deify the character of Indiana Jones, it just wants people to have fun with him again.
*Another one that makes me kind of roll my eyes….Indiana Jones’ dad is scared of rats. This is in juxtaposition, you see, to Indiana Jones’ famous phobia of snakes. LOL!
And, as it happens, LAST CRUSADE is a lot of fun! Mission accomplished there. Of course, there’s something a little deflating about watching a movie called LAST CRUSADE, with a story that is already lightly hinting at the idea of Indiana Jones hanging up the whip (an early scene has a villain implying that he is the one that belongs in a museum now), one that ends with Jones riding into the sunset, the ultimate hero’s ending, and remembering “oh yeah, there’s two more of these now”. You do wonder if the 21st century has sapped some of this film’s power, now that it is no longer a series capper, but instead a midpoint.
I understand the constant temptation to return to the well when it comes to successful film franchises, and although we’ll talk about INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL in this space two years from now, I feel like it’s worth mentioning that I thought INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY was a good-enough “official finale” for the series. But I’ve always felt like Lucasfilm has forgotten the lesson Indy learns at the end of INDIANA JONES’ first finale…
…his quest for the Grail leads to him “choosing….wisely” and drinking from the chalice, granting him immortality. Immortality, of course, comes at a price, as the Grail’s current keeper informs him. Once he leaves the confines of the temple in which it resides, he will be immortal no more. His only task he can have as an unkillable being is to stay in this one room, keeping watch over the Grail. Obviously, a life with no end that comes with such restrictions is no life at all. Jones chooses to take off into the sunset with his father and friends instead.
At least the character does. His eponymous movie franchise, on the other hand, appears to have chosen to stay inside the temple, keeping guard over a property and extending its life into the infinite. It’s too bad. Had the INDIANA JONES series enjoyed its mortal life, the last image of him riding into the sunset might have been the perfect note to go out on.
But, you can’t always stop the keepers of a billion dollar franchise from choosing…poorly.