"Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" (1984) - Movie Review

Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones an archaeological macho savvy falls off the sky with an accidental adventurer female singer Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw) and a Chinese boy Short Round (Ke Huy Quan) in the middle of Northern India. The film is a prequel to “Raiders of the Lost Ark” and it is lengthy, tires you and crashes sense in very many scenes which were one of strong hold in the first installment.

The villagers are deserted and the fields die causing food to be scarce in the village they reach on. Indy is believed to be sent by Lord Siva himself to rescue them for which he got to enter Pankot palace and retrieve the Shiva Linga stones along with slaved childrens of the villagers. And I do not think the members in the palace of those times were connoisseurs of snakes, bugs and monkey brains. The faint memories of that disgusting scenes still reside somewhere in me and seeing it again brought the film down in terms of shallow research of such possible existence.

Whether it shows India in bad light? I felt it glorified the superstition which would still have its foot in not well known small villages in current days. There are barely moments to see Indy speak as he constantly is fighting to survive from gunshots, heart ripping hands of Mola Ram (Amrish Puri), being bathed with creepy tons of insects, underground rail chases and what not. Action scenes run this film which is what would have been the expectation for this second work of Stephen Spielberg. Yet, it dragged on a little more in every stunt that it should actually had. It disinterested the point of those crucial escapes and despite the awareness of Indy is going to come out fine, the fraction of second thoughts that he might not is the thrill run. And the stupid boyish grin is missing a lot from Ford.

This time the travel plan for numerous countries is cut off and concentrates only in India. All the gallant features are not of India but shot in Sri Lanka. The rivalry taunting of Jones on Scott has chuckles in sparse and the side kick Shorty contends with Willie for who is more annoying. Given that the film is darker (literally) and filled with doom (again literally), it is a horror factor which too has flimsy base of stories. “Raiders of the Lost Ark” had adventurous interesting nugget information all along the journey while this one opens the dam of it well before to may even grasp some. And what happened to Indy’s ingenuity on unraveling certain mystical puzzles? The old trick of being mesmerized by a human blood potion and been getting out of it by lighting Indy on fire! It is a decline of great deal in content and logic per se.

This is the film in the trilogy which I do not remember seeing it completely as a kid. I thought may be it is too horrific in certain scenes and may be quite addressing the adult audience. It is true that some scenes are disgusting and scary for a kid but the second part is not true though. Ford and Capshaw are more animated than they should and supply surplus cheesiness slipping to grip the story. I guess the accidental involvement of the Capshaw character removed the authenticity of Karen Allen’s Marion Ravenwood.

But it is an action film doing exactly what it opens up the scene with. From start till finish, it is a charade of stunts choreographed complexly among the sets of vivid imagination. It is racy with an outcome well within our realms of understanding. The action scenes awestruck us but does not hold the suspense. May be I demanded more out of this venture but with high possibilities for seeing Indy become Indy in a prequel, I would have liked some more back story which tells a little more about this funny, daring and sometimes foolish adventurer.

It did swamp itself with ridiculous amount of money in the opening which would follow its third brother in its franchise and may very well for the fourth one. The exploration of one character in a film expected to provide dubious stunts in plausible mode is a futile one but that happening in the second installment is way too short of an effort to succumb. Let me see whether refreshing the third one has something in this rugged historian.