Review 84: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

I'm just going to come out and say it: Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is Horrid!

In 1935, a year before the events of Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) escapes from a group of Chinese gangsters along with singer/actress Wilhemina "Willie" Scott (Kate Capshaw) and his 12-year old sidekick Short Round (Jonathan Ke Quan).
The trio crash land in India, where they come across a village whose children have been kidnapped by the Thuggee led by Mola Ram (Amrish Puri) who has also taken the sacred Sankara Stones which they plan to use to take over the world.

The plot is a bunch of random, ill-conceived ideas and chaotic chase scenes. Once we as an audience are reintroduced to Indy, the plot races helter skelter from one set piece, one implausible plot point and one racist stereotype after the other. The plight of a poor Indian village is certainly a worthwhile quest but it simply isn't a very exciting or compeling story.

By confining the majority of the action to a single location (India), Temple of Doom lacks globtrotting adventure thrills of its predorcessor.

 

By this point, it's clear that Steven Spielberg and George Lucas are positioning the Indiana Jones films as a  similar to the James Bond movies. Gone are the Nazis and instead, that's traded for child slavery, black magic and a Thugee cult and you're either going to like it or hate it. Personally, all of that was bit much to stomach for my taste.

 

The film is set before the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark, why? What does it add? How does it help to tell the story any better? The film plays it up as a big deal but it has zilch impact on the overall plot.

Returning director Steven Spielberg's direction is positively bonkers, the cinematography is beautiful and captures the beauty of India, the Indian setting itself is lush and the production design is the score by John Williams is striking, the costumes are lavish. The action scenes, however, are more numbing and nauseating instead or exciting or provocative. An extended slapstick sequence involving Indy and Willie crawling around a nightclub looking for an antidote and a diamond respectively is very indicative of this. There's a minecart chase
 

The jokes miss more than they hit relying mostly on gross-out humor and jokes of poor taste that use supposed Indian culture practises as a punchline and it isn't funny.

Harrison Ford continues to shine in the role of Indiana Jones  It's his charisma that serves as the glue that holds this Roller coaster of an adventure film together.

Not helping matters is the fact that Indy is saddled with two of the most annoying characters in the history of motion pictures. Kate Capshaw's Willie Scott never amounts to anything more than a hopeless case, constantly gets into trouble and screaming her head off like a. 
Willie, according to Spielberg, has led a pampered life and feels that's what's due her - to be cared for and looked after. She meets Indy, whose unlike anyone she has ever been involved with and ends up going off with him (much to her horror). In the course of their adventure, all of her earlier life is stripped away from her and Willie must "fall back on her resources".
Spielberg purposefully wanted Willie to be a complete contrast to Marion from Raiders of the Lost Ark and these attempts are appreciated, this one fell flat and made me miss Marion even more She's so obnoxious that

As for then 12 year old child actor Jonathan Ke Huy Quan as Short Round  It makes zero sense for Indiana Jones, an seasoned archeologist and university professor, to let an meddlesome, no it all, prepubescent, would-be plucky 12 year old child be his sidekick.

Amrish Puri is  playing Mola Ram, high preist and leader of the Thugee cult. The things that Ram does are pure evil, he is devoutly religious and believes in the religious significance of the stones and intends to use them for world domination. Puri delivers a grandiose performance to the point where he's almost cartoonishly evil and therefore impossible to take seriously. 

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is odd and unpleasent 1/5.

The Anonymous Critic.