Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (

1989

) ½

I fucking love adventure stories. This is in no small part, due to the influence of my father. He was the one who read The Hobbit to me as a bedtime story and made sure I was well-supplied with his generation's best sci-fi and fantasy novels when he finished his narration. It was due to his influence that I watched, and re-watched, the adventure stories that he considered to be timeless classics: Wizards (1977), Star War (1977), and Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981). But of all the old adventure movies he screened again and again (my dad doesn't so much watch movies as live with them for a time watching them a couple of times a week for a month or two) I think that today's film was his favorite. He never really gave a reason for his preference, preferring to just plainly state the film was “awesome” or “great.” Well, I can't fault his assessment, but all the same, let me take this chance to dive into just what makes Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade so “awesome.”

Now, this is the third film in a trilogy, and consequently, there's no need to establish Indiana Jones's character or his backstory. Those of us who saw Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) already know he's a bad-ass archaeologist who divides his time between fighting Nazis, unearthing lost artifacts, and lecturing at Princeton. He's the kind of guy who braves death with a grin and a shrug and can always be counted on to do the right thing even if he has to use unscrupulous methods to do so. Yet despite knowing exactly who Indiana Jones is, the audience has no idea about how he came to be. Now, this is not something we really need to know to enjoy Indy's adventures, and as certain recent examples have shown (Star War: Episode I – The Phantom Menace (1999) and the rest of the prequel trilogy most obviously) often times seeing how a great character came to be is less interesting than seeing them in action. Fortunately, Stephen Spielberg understands that we're here to see Indiana Jones, not the pubescent spastic who will someday be him, so he keeps the backstory short and punchy. We open with a 13-year-old Indiana Jones in full boy scout regalia, trying to foil a band of grave robbers. He swipes the historically valuable cross the looters have unearthed and leads them on a chase that culminates onboard a circus train. Spielberg mines the setting for all it's worth, giving the young Indiana close run-ins with lions, snakes, and a rhinoceros. The whole sequence is brief as well, after all of 15-20 minutes we rejoin Harrison Ford as the adult Indiana Jones and get him started on his next adventure. As far as filling in the backstory goes, Star Wars could learn a lesson from The Last Crusade. Why have a whole trilogy if prequels when you can get the same effect from what is effectively a James Bond pre-credit sequence?

The prologue makes sure to introduce us to all the familiar totems of Indiana Jones' character including his whip, his fedora, the scar on his chin and even his phobia of snakes. It also introduces us to something new, Indiana's estranged father Dr. Henry Jones Senior, who is a great scholar but unquestionably a shitty father. The old man is more concerned about finding the location of the holy grail (Here a literal cup, there's none of that The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail crap) than he is with his son's well being. There's no love lost between father and son but when Walter Donovan, an American businessman with an interest in the grail, informs Jones that his father has disappeared while investigating a lead in Venice, Jones can't just stay away. A chance to save his dad and uncover a mystic relic is just too tempting an offer for him to pass up. Plus, if I had had the same experience Indy had with religious artifacts, I would be anxious to keep them out of the wrong hands too. Jones heads to Venice and picks up where his father left off with some help from Dr. Henry Jones' assistant Elsa Schneider. Of course, the task is not gonna be easy, the secrets of the grail are protected not just by clever puzzles that have inexplicably gone unsolved for centuries, but by a brotherhood of tattooed, fez-clad weirdos. But ancient traps and sworn guardians are just another day at the office for Indiana Jones, so unsurprisingly he succeeds, discovering a crucial clue as to the whereabouts of the grail.

In the process, he also learns that his father is being held by the SS in a castle along the German-Austrian border, so being the good son he is, Indiana departs at once for the fortress with Elsa in tow. Little does he know, he's walking into a trap. In truth, Elsa is a Nazi and Donovan is in cahoots with the Third Reich. They kidnapped Henry Jones in an attempt to get their hands on his notes, and when it turns out that he had sent them to his son, they quickly involved Indiana in the plot, letting him do the heavy lifting in the archaeology department. By going to rescue his father from the Nazis, Indiana is inadvertently playing right into their hands. It isn't long before both Dr, Joneses are in custody of the SS and the Germans have their hands on the elder Dr. Jones' diary. The only component missing is the map that Henry Jones drew to the grail, and unfortunately, that is in the hands of the well-meaning but hopelessly incompetent museum curator Marcus Brody. It's only a matter of time before the Germans apprehend him.

Dr. Henry Jones is a wonderful character in his own right, but where he really shines is in his capacity as a side-kick. He's a more traditional archaeologist than his son so instead of raiding tombs and fighting nazis for the last few decades, he's been hitting the books, deciphering some old texts ad pouring over ancient maps. When it comes to a fight, he's practically hopeless, despite the fact that he keeps his cool under pressure to an almost supernatural degree. Consequently, when it comes to the swashbuckling, he's in no danger of upstaging the lead. Despite that, he's not about to go around fawning moon-eyed over his own son. When Indy does something stupid, or something his dad thinks is stupid, Henry Jones won't waste any time castigating him for it. The pair despises (in Indy's case it's pretty justified, all the evidence suggests that Henry was a lousy father) each other nearly as much as they admire one another and the dynamic us quite fun to watch play out. Hell, Spielberg even introduces an oedipal rivalry when he coyly implies that both Dr. Joneses have been sleeping with Elsa (“How did you know she was a Nazi?” “She talks in her sleep”). Henry Jones is also the source of a good deal of the film's humor, having the tendency to fuck everything up in such a way that it accidentally winds up saving the day. Take the scene where he and Indy are tied up together in the SS castle, for instance, Henry accidentally starts a fire that first almost kills the two of them but instead winds up covering their escape in a spectacular fashion.

Making the primary villains of the film Nazis, just as Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) strikes me as lazy. Indiana Jones is the sort of hero who could plausibly be pitted against any antagonist under the sun. Mad scientists, Incan mummies, communist insurgents, and Fu-Manchu would all fit comfortably inside Jones' universe. Keep in mind, this is a world where black magic and biblical artifacts are real and exhibit real power. The world of pulp serials is one that demands an eclectic rogue's gallery (see literally any super hero comic, but especially Batman). Obviously, I don't mind seeing the odd SS colonel tossed off a cliff face, but despite that cathartic release, it still seems a shame to reuse a villain when there are so many more exciting alternatives available.

While we're nitpicking, the computer effects have aged about as well as mayonnaise left out on the porch. I'm sure they were cutting edge in 1989, but now they look downright goofy. Ironically this is not a problem that the older films in the series would have, because practical effects have a sort of built-in charm to them. Even if we know what wizardry produces the illusion, we're still impressed by the craftsmanship that went into it. Spielberg would have been well advised to lay off the use of CGI until the technology matured (say around the time of Jurassic Park (1993)).

Humor is interspersed throughout the film, and despite never being the focus the jokes usually land. Indeed, compared to its predecessors, I would say that The Last Crusade is the funniest film in the trilogy. Some gags are legendary, like a certain sequence I don't dare spoil where the Joneses have a close encounter with Adolf Hitler himself. After more than a decade playing some of cinema's most iconic rogues, Harrison Ford's comic timing is polished to a fantastic degree. The whole tone is light, which fits the serial adventure story tone that Spielberg is invoking with the world and characters. It mostly works, but at times I have trouble feeling any real stakes to the conflict playing out. It's a forgone conclusion that Indiana Jones will find some way to get the better of his adversaries and save the day. We know ahead of time that nobody too sympathetic will die or suffer grievous injury and that nothing too grim or disturbing will happen. But the film is saved by its charm. I don't care that I know how the film will end before the opening title card, I just want to spend a little time with these characters and pass a couple of hours in their world. It's escapism at its finest, a brief window into a simpler world of heroes, villains, and adventure.