Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - Movie Review

indiana jones and the last crusade the third and what was believed to be at the time the final indiana jones movie has always been my favorite of the original trilogy raiders of the lost ark is one of the best action-adventure films ever made and temple of doom while not as good was a very unique and different follow-up but the last crusade has something that both of those films just didn't really have enough of heart last crusade has more emotion genuine stakes it humanizes the character of indiana jones more than any of the films because of the relationship between him and his father but we'll get into that soon when i was a kid this movie was recorded off of tv onto vhs and so i watched that specific vhs quite often and i was pretty skillful with pressing stop on the record button for the vcr when a commercial would start so as i watched the film today i always remember where the commercial breaks were since audiences didn't like temple of doom as much and spielberg got a lot of flack for the film's intense violence the last crusade is definitely an attempt at going back to basics it's very much like raiders it brings back marcus brody it brings back salah lots of the action takes place in the desert and this time he's after the holy grail supposedly the cup that christ drank from at the last supper and so in that way it feels like it has some connective tissue to another biblical artifact like the ark of the covenant and for some critics in 1989 that bothered them like say gene siskel for instance and normally it would bother me too that it feels like it's taking from something we've seen and we love and it feels like it's using that as a blueprint if the story and the way this film goes and plays out wasn't so great because this movie does a lot of things really differently from raiders namely that relationship between indy and his father played brilliantly by sean connery this film's opening titles use the original font from raiders and since kingdom of the crystal skull did the same thing that makes temple of doom the only film that has a unique opening logo this is also easily my favorite opening scene of all indiana jones films the opening of raiders is truly brilliant and we all love the classic scene with the idol but again going back to the emotion the beginning of last crusade exploring indiana jones young years in his first real adventure when he discovers that some men have found the cross of coronado and are planning to sell it that cross is an important artifact it belongs in a museum and there's a great bait and switch to this scene too because you don't know that this kid is indiana jones in fact he's creeping up on somebody who looks exactly like indiana jones he's got the jacket he's got the fedora and as soon as spielberg reveals that that's not indy we meet young indiana jones played wonderfully by river phoenix man what a tragedy this actor was not seen in more material he was so good in this film and other movies like my private idaho with keanu reeves and the mosquito coast which starred harrison ford and it's one of the reasons that river phoenix got to play this role ford recommended river phoenix to spielberg because of his work with him on that film side note the mosquito coast apparently is harrison ford's favorite film he's ever been in peter weir's movie phoenix stated that since he had worked with ford before on the mosquito coast he was able to fashion an impression of him and he's excellent he's so so good as this character and it kind of makes me sad that we never got to see a young indiana jones show with river phoenix as that character not that sean patrick flannery was bad it was just river phoenix man in this scene we see the beginnings of his greatest phobia that of snakes falling into a snake pit on a train during a great chase sequence and since harrison ford has that famous scar across his chin that he apparently got in a car accident they decided to explain that in this scene as well when a lion approaches him he grabs a whip off the wall and the whip slices him across the chin so as young india is fleeing from these guys trying to protect the cross of coronado he inadvertently impresses the leader of this gang in a great moment where india is fleeing from the train spielberg pushes in on this guy and he just cracks a smile all of a sudden and you realize he likes this kid one of my favorite bits of trivia about this movie is that this character as i said scripted as fedora was originally supposed to be abner ravenwood the father of marion why did they change that that is such a great idea something else this opening explores ever so briefly is the turbulent relationship between indy and his father we only see his hands in this scene as he draws in his grail diary making his son count in greek it kind of reminds me of a deleted scene from et that actually featured harrison ford where we only saw his hands but after that hat goes on young indy's face spielberg cuts to indiana jones as we know and love him played by harrison ford and we almost get two intros in this movie it's [ __ ] awesome he's still fighting for this cross of coronado and he's able to get it eventually and bring it back to marcus brody we go back to school and we have a very similar opening for how raiders opened he's writing on the chalkboard marcus is approaching the room it's all set up in the exact same way the scenes are blocked almost identically you can tell that spielberg is really trying to make raiders too like temple was just like this thing that happened and it's like an obscure weird movie that now exists whereas the rest are trying to be the same and here they finally address how difficult it is for him to actually be a professor because he's also going out collecting idols and shankara stones and punching people in the face but he has all this mail that's stacked up and every student he knows wants to speak to him and he's got to sneak out the goddamn window these are little things i didn't pick up on when i was younger i just thought wow he's really backed up at work oh no he's he's really behind schedule mom but he's soon confronted by some men and brought to walter donovan's house played by julian glover who was also when the empire strikes back and even though we don't know it yet the villain is now giving us the exposition about the holy grail and everything that we need to know about this artifact that indiana jones doesn't initially believe in but is nevertheless incredibly enticed by but he still says hey why don't you just try my dad grail lore is his hobby and we learned that his father was the project leader to find the holy grail but he's disappeared it's not quite as fun as the way he handled exposition in raiders like with the monkey and the poison dates while they're learning about the length of the staff or all of the crazy meals that are served in temple of doom but this feels more weighty we understand that there's some real stakes involved in the following scene india and marcus find his father's house ransacked and i appreciate that spielberg sets up a legitimate mysterious feeling indy asks marcus if he believes in this and i imagine after raiders of the lost ark when he originally said i don't believe in any of this superstitious hocus pocus that probably changed after the ending of that film even though his eyes were closed he opened those eyes and the nazis were all [ __ ] gone so he knows that that there is some [ __ ] out there but this movie doesn't just treat this like it's a cool item or something he can obtain that you can put on the poster it makes the characters question their beliefs and raiders marcus decided not to go on the mission but in this film he's like nah tell him we'll take two tickets [ __ ] i'm coming on this [ __ ] mission whether you like it or not i love everything that they do with marcus brody in this movie den holm elliott could have been that really annoying sidekick he is pitch perfect throughout this movie another actor who we have lost uh such a phenomenal role in this movie he's so funny he's so likable he brings just the right amount of comedy to this film here we meet elsa snyder who accompanies indie and marcus to a library there's a really beautiful little exchange between the two where indie steals a flower it's this little tiny bit of dialogue that is actually really really great but it's said so quickly that you just don't notice how good it is and even though we expect a level of knowing tongue-in-cheek humor in an indiana jones movie this movie purposefully mocks x marks the spot in indy's lecture he says x never ever marks the spot but when he goes to this library and starts to investigate he has to admit i i x marks the spot but i could easily see this scene being mocked by people if they hadn't earlier mocked the idea of x marking the spot themselves and since they set it up as a joke like yeah that never happens in real archaeology later they can do it they can get away with it and again with the humor the stamp guy this is always one of the funnier sequences in this movie and it's such an easy joke it's it's so easy and simple i'm jealous of it this guy is stamping things and he keeps looking at the stamp because india is crushing this floorboard when indy discovers the entrance to the catacombs and he goes down inside he's got a smile when he looks around which is just perfect this character is so excited to be in this dark dank skeleton-filled rat infested catacomb because this is where he truly feels alive those little moments like that throughout this movie tell you so much about the characters raiders had snakes temple had bugs this film has rats which apparently were bred specifically for this movie because if they brought in other rats they might have diseases and [ __ ] and so they actually they [ __ ] bred rats for this movie that's i can't even imagine that like just imagine putting that on your resume i directed a movie and they specifically bred rats for my movie god damn it you pay attention to what i say and again with indy's excitement when they find the shield and he's starting to realize that his dad's grail diary was accurate that his dad was really on to something and here's where they first encounter the brotherhood of the cruciform sword people sworn to protect the holy grail we get a phenomenal boat chase here that's filled with comedy and action i love the giant propeller and the sequence there especially this shot having both of the actors in frame in a wide with this thing destroying the boat not only does it look great but it feels like they're in real danger and in the following scene indy realizes that elsa's room has been broken into and it's interesting knowing that elsa is in league with the nazis and that she did this to her own room because as soon as indy sees that he grabs the diary and is like this is what they were looking for elsa got exactly what she wanted in that moment she probably wanted him to just say like yeah this is the thing and they didn't get it and it makes her look trustworthy and she knows now that indy has the diary it's a pretty clever scheme on her part and just like in raiders where spielberg had that great scene where indy was just pointing to parts of his body that didn't hurt getting marian to kiss him starting this romantic moment here an argument leads to romance but the following scene makes me long for that possibility that was always in the air of a haunted castle indiana jones movie they go to a castle and we get this great bit where harrison ford can flex his surprisingly great comedy chops playing this scottish lord but originally george lucas had pitched the idea of a haunted castle being an indiana jones movie but spielberg had just made poltergeist and so he didn't want to do another haunting style movie damn we were this close to an indiana jones in a haunted castle but here spielberg brings back the nazis he's going full raiders this time and bringing back the villains from that film they're also after the holy grail because they want the power it has supposedly the ability to grant someone eternal life and this is where the movie propels into the [ __ ] stratosphere the idea of having sean connery james bond himself play indiana jones father perfect casting and this is my favorite role of sean connery's career i love ms bond i love him in hunt for red october i love him in the untouchables his oscar-winning role but this role in particular man did he ever knock it out of the park you learn their entire dynamic in this scene he calls his son junior and he's annoyed by that he hits him across the head accidentally with like a vase and then he's relieved because he realizes the vase is fake he barely cares that he smashed it over his son's head he's just glad the thing is fake it's fake see you can tell at the cross section when the nazis break into the room and father and son have an argument and indie grabs a gun and kills all the nazis sean connery's reaction to all of this is one of my favorite moments in the whole movie this sets up maybe my favorite father-son relationship in a movie indie does all of these amazing things that any father in this situation running for their lives from nazis would be like damn nice job son he's never impressed with anything that indy does throughout the whole film and it's just such a great dynamic it humanizes indiana jones as a character to such great extents we already understood that he was a person he was very vulnerable in the other movies but in this one we understand that he's had a life and when we're amazed by the cool things indie does and his dad's not it just brings him right down to earth i also love that the movie reveals all of its villains right here pretty early it's before we get to the halfway point we don't save it for some final twist that donovan's actually a bad guy or that elsa is in league with the nazis one of the greatest jokes in the whole movie is in the following scene when they realize that donovan's the true bad guy when india's like how did you know elso was a nazi she talks in the sleep so the nazis are after the grail diary and they want to know where it is indy says marcus brody has a head start on you he'll blend in disappear you'll never see him again with any luck he has the grail already oh does anyone here speak english dennholm elliott is so good in this movie oh my god and in this scene we meet salah he returns and it's a welcome sight run yes run run in the following scene india and his father are tied up indy has a lighter he tries to pass it to his father to burn through the ropes but he drops it and starts a fire himself and so they have to escape the room they eventually escape on a motorcycle and as i said earlier anything that indy does most likely his father doesn't find it all that impressive and even though this scene is a blast it ends with a very abrupt shift in tone when his father slaps him in the face that's for blush for me i swear every line was written for sean connery like every every line they were like this is a sean connery line can you put s's and h's in it please but again even though we've just had this really fun action scene on a motorcycle spielberg continues to humanize the character they talk about their backstory they talk about indy's mother and the illness that she had and how she kept it from them and how he was never able to to feel like he grieved properly it's just it's beautiful it's also a great reminder of his father's obsession and how he never felt like he fully understood it and how it kept them apart the next scene is absolutely terrific indy runs into actual hitler and he gets the grail diary back from elsa saying my father didn't want it incinerated and i also like how indy is willing to kill elsa in this moment because she stood up with the nazis who gives a damn what you think but when he bumps into hitler and hitler signs this book the very book that hitler wants and he just walks away it's so great that they're essentially saying hitler's ego was so gigantic that he couldn't even see past the fact that the exact thing he wanted is in his hand but he's like no this kid just wants an autograph here you go i'm evil next india and his father are boarding a blimp and here's pat roach his third appearance in the indiana jones films originally there was a little fight with him in indy but it was actually deleted when vogel boards the blimp and finds indy's father indy steals a uniform and says tickets please he doesn't have a ticket so he throws him off no ticket this is easily the funniest of all four indiana jones movies every joke works they all land the scene after this with indy and his father on the boat is so beautifully written oh no i'm here now what do you want to talk about well [Laughter] i can't think of anything then what are you complaining about it's so beautiful it's just great it's so i love this [ __ ] movie so much why don't they make movies like this anymore man seriously why don't they what the [ __ ] make good movies again please when they realize they're being taken back to germany they flee to a plane attached to the bottom of the blimp and they escape but there are enemy planes along the way which leads to a dogfight i love this sequence especially connery blowing up the tail of the plane by accident sean i'm sorry they got us something else about the scene i've always wondered about is indy saying fly yes land no i'm assuming that after temple and the sequence where the plane crashes and he says he can't fly then he learned he must have took lessons to avoid that happening again what's also unique about the scene is it feels like it's setting up a sequence with a plane but it becomes other things the plane goes down so now they have to get to a car now they're fleeing to a beach and the planes are still firing upon them those people are trying to kill us i know dad but here spielberg gives one of the best ways for their relationship to start to bond and start to get better because connery has this idea he's like i'm just gonna go take my umbrella and scare all these seagulls to make the seagulls crash into the plane and india is just staring at his dad like who the [ __ ] is this guy where was this guy when i was a kid this guy's pretty cool raiders had the truck chase temple had the mine car chase and last crusade has a brilliant tank chase this sequence is thrilling it still looks amazing all of the stunts are great especially leaping from the horse onto the tank the entire fight sequence with vogel indie shooting all the nazis with one bullet ford getting his face pressed against the wheel the blocking of the whole sequence where indy uses his whip to rescue his dad and of course harrison ford doing so much of the stunts himself like hanging from the gun all the dirt being thrown in his face he's getting pummeled with a shovel this movie understands that indy has to escape from the skin of his teeth he has to feel like he's facing real opposition that he always just gets out of these little moments by a thread and there's stakes to this scene it's not just a fun chase his dad's in there and so is marcus so you feel like something bad could happen and marcus and his little secret handshake greeting with henry is one of the most adorable things in this movie um henry don't you see the pen the pen is mightier than the sword and as the tank is approaching the cliffside indy's hat blows off it doesn't even survive this moment this is the first time they've purposefully had his hat fly off in the middle of an action scene suggesting that he might [ __ ] die and this sequence ends with one of my favorite death screams of all time the past 10 15 minutes have been nothing but noise music brilliant score all of the explosions and sound effects and punches and it all just cuts out right here as his dad looks down at what he believes to be the wreckage of his son's death it's such a powerful moment and when he sees his son and just gets this incredible look of relief and embraces him it's easily the most emotionally resonant moment of any indiana jones scene now here we get to the third act of the movie which is without a doubt my favorite third act of any indiana jones film in raiders it's exciting but indy's tied to a post the whole time i love the ending of temple it's a lot of fun but it's basically just a lot of action scenes in this movie there is real genuine stakes donovan's shooting indie's father knowing that my dad is going to die unless i pass these tests and his only help is his dad's grill diary and they cut back to his dad who's understanding the positions that his son is in he knows the tests his son is doing and so it feels almost like they're doing the tests together henry did all the research and indie's benefiting from it to save his father it's so [ __ ] beautiful man honestly the first test is is kind of the most [ __ ] up one like it seems like that would be like the one where like if you make it through the first one you at least like have a a knowledge of the other ones like you can probably spell god's name or at least have a knowledge of that and then the one after that is sort of like huh the bridge kind of looks interesting if i go like this yeah oh it's like an illusion all right i'll just walk that first one though that's some dangerous [ __ ] not only does one cut off your head but if it misses you it kind of slices up your [ __ ] groin like but it's not just the stakes of his father's life it's also his beliefs he has to come to terms with whether or not these things mean something to him it's a brilliant third act and it is easily the best of the trilogy and i'm just gonna keep saying the trilogy it's it's a trilogy but he eventually finds the knight the man who was charged with keeping the grail safe and since he found the real grail he is immortal he can't pass the great seal so he's been there for many hundreds of years donovan comes in and elsa suggests the wrong grail on purpose to drink from donovan does and as usual per the indiana jones movies the villain's own ambition kills them in the end and what is still an incredible effect i miss effects like this he chose poorly and i like how indy knows that the real cup is is kind of like old and dirty looking it doesn't look like it's fancy at all he drinks from it you have chosen wisely he's able to save his dad but there's this great moment where henry just looks at the grail and realizes i'm holding in my hand what i have been searching for my entire life which is what makes the following scenes so brilliant the ground starts to fall out from beneath them because elsa takes it brings it past the seal which starts this destruction of this entire place indy's holding on to elsa and she believes she can reach this thing and her greed and her lust for it causes her to fall to her death when india is in the exact same position next and his father is holding on to him indi can grab it it's enticing him just like it did elsa but his dad calls him indiana for the first time he doesn't call him junior this makes indy realize just forget about it if my dad who's been hunting for this thing his entire life is willing to let it go i should too and what i also love about this scene is it's not only that he calls him indiana he calls him the name that he prefers to be called he doesn't say henry he calls him the name indy would rather be known as and what i want to say about john williams for this movie is his theme for the grail is my favorite thing he's done in this film it is haunting it is so so gorgeous and in this following moment where we see the grail night henry's able to have this little stare down with him for a second it gives me chills every time now marcus sala henry and indy are about to ride into the sunset when henry says indiana we named the dog indiana you are named after the dog i got a lot of fond memories with that dog i also named my dog indiana or indy for short because of this movie george lucas's dog was named indy as well and you had a dog of a similar breed in the opening scene of this film the four of them literally ride off into the sunset the perfect ending for indiana jones and this trilogy except it wasn't they uh they made another one yep they did i'm gonna give indiana jones and the last crusade an a plus this film has entertained me for years i think it has all of the action that makes an indiana jones film exciting but it has the heart and it has the emotion that none of the previous two did and even though i love those movies this film just humanized the character to such an extent the relationship between him and his father brought him down to earth and it really made him feel like a lived in person guys thank you so much for continuing to watch my indiana jones reviews i've got one more to do for you as i have already alluded to that's indiana jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull look forward to that next sunday thank you guys so much as always for watching and if you like this you can click right here and get stuck manized [Music] you

Channel: Chris Stuckmann

Views: 461,654

Rating: 4.9570689 out of 5

Keywords: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, Movie Review, Chris Stuckmann, 1989, Reviews, Film, Scene, Clip, Trailer, Teaser, Tank, Tests, Penitent, Grail, Holy Grail, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, George Lucas, John Williams, OST, Score, Soundtrack, Music, Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Denholm Elliott, Alison Doody, John Rhys-Davies, Julian Glover, River Phoenix, Michael Byrne, Steven Spielberg

Id: d0SnKm0OMXk

Length: 24min 41sec (1481 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 19 2020