Movie Tasting: Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade + Port, Port, Port

Oh snap, that "He chose...poorly" immortal knight guy is from THIS movie and not Monty Python and the Holy Grail?

ACTION SCENES: 8
TOTAL ACTION TIME: 36/122 min. (28.6/100)
CHOREOGRAPHY: 6/10
STUNTS: 6/10
EDITING: 7/10
FINALE: 5/10
MISCELLANEOUS MENTIONS: None
TOTAL ACTION JUNKIE SCORE: 60.6

READ HOW THE ACTION JUNKIE SCORE WORKS

***

WINE PAIRING:
Something old, dusty, dirty, deep and conflicting in the mix of its power and grace. I say Port, baby. Either Ruby (red) or Tawny (brown), go as old as you can afford. 20 or 30 year, if possible. These have a funk, an edge, but they also have sweetness and will get you punch drunk in minimal time. Port always makes me think of age, old world trade routes, camels, horses, leather, dried meats, dried fruits, etc.

If you need an early pre-game drink before the movie gets into the good stuff, start with a Late Harvest white dessert wine. Ice wine would be devine, rhyme intended.

Film Review

Now this is more like it! After wading through CRYSTAL SKULL as the opening of my revisit to the Indiana Jones filmography - and feeling like the tone and style of Skull was "off" from these earlier films - it was satisfying to confirm I wasn't wrong, that even this later 90's entry is still miles away in atmosphere and affect from that 2008 attempted revival.

Last Crusade opens with our very first glimpse into the childhood/past of Indiana, which was a genius move - not only does it frame the entire story in terms of Indiana's relationship with his father, but it also establishes the fact that we're about to embark on more of a character piece than either of the previous films ever attempted. River Phoenix may just be the perfect Young Indiana - though I'm curious to finally try Sean Patrick Flannery's version in the TV show, which I've still never seen.

The origin of Indy's hat is a bit much - this can't possibly be the same hat after all this time...can it? Then again, I may just love how goddamn important the hat is, that he'll NEVER lose it, no matter what. This is why him putting it on Shia Lebouff's head at the end of Crystal Skull was (meant to be) such a big deal.

From here, we return to the characters and locations of the previous films. Well, of the first film, Raiders.

Denholm Elliott returns as the university dean/principle/whatever, who this time joins Indiana on the adventure. John rhys-Davies also returns as an overseas compatriot - you can almost FEEL Speilberg's desperate need to erase Temple of Doom's alternate take on Indy, and return to what he considered his appropriate take: he even brings back Nazis as the bad guys. It's like he was terrified to demonize any other political group or culture. He essentially stuck to his guns in Crystal Skull by side-stepping to Russians. White authoritarian cultures = safe. Other colored cultures = let's not. I'm not saying he's wrong to draw that line, but it's interesting nonetheless.

Anywho, we then get a very Raiders-style adventure, mostly set in similarly hot, dry, sand-colored vistas. We stopover in Rome to have a brief adventure in a catacomb under a library, and a speedboat chase sequence where I nodded in satisfaction (and also upset) when most of those chasing Indy died horribly in the chase - and these turned out to actually be on his side! But here was an Indiana Jones film as I remembered them: death was always around the corner, and unfair, and somewhat gruesome and upsetting even when it was the bad guys dying. Crystal Skull was mostly missing this!

Hats off to Sean Connery, of course, who was a perfect father figure and actual father to Harrirson Ford's Indiana. And Alison Doody as Elsa, a mostly bad gal but who wasn't much about killing and all about the archeology and doing whatever it took to discover the impossible - the film does a fantastic job showcasing her amoral status and how her own obsession is what does her in. The fact that she was Irish but often played Nazis is interesting. I'm not sure why she was type cast as bad gals so often. So much so she even played the main baddie lady in the Bollywood's latest sensation "RRR". I mean, damn. Everyone sees her work and thinks "Oh, yeah, you're fucking evil." Good for her?

Alison Doody with Ray Stevenson (RIP) on the set of “RRR”

I'd entirely forgotten that the immortal knight guy who says "He chose...poorly." - a GIF that has made the rounds for the last half-decade or so - was from this movie. Somehow I'd always thought he was from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Oops.

But seriously: how does Indy's dad die before the fourth Crystal SKull movie? And how is Indy still aging? Didn't they both drink from the actual holuy grail which grants immortality? I wonder if any of this will be addressed in Dial of Desinty? I'm guessing no.

This is a fantastic pulp advnenture flick. Though personally, it's still ranked only #3. It was #1 at one point in time, but looking back, and watching these in reverse order, it still feels like an attempt to rehash the original Raiders film. Which is does admirably, with an amazing addition of daddy Jones Connery. But it's still mostly an echo of the GOAT.