Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade  ★★★½

WHEN was the last time you saw opening credits where the lead actor’s name came before the film’s title?

I’d say quite a while, but back in the ‘80s it was the norm for blockbusters like the third film in the Raiders’ franchise, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

As with most franchises, the general consensus is George Lucas’ original film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, in 1981 set the standard and was followed in descending order of quality by Temple of Doom in ‘84, Last Crusade five years later and finally Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in 2008.

While Raiders is definitely the best, I think Doom and Crusade are still a lot of fun and worthy sequels. I’ll reserve judgement on No 4 until I see it again.

The worst thing about Crusade is that while the over-arching story is a stand-alone, eventually the narrative becomes a beat-by -beat remake of Raiders, right down to the final act with melting Nazis, Holy Grail instead of Lost Ark, fight on a tank instead of truck, etc.

The best thing is we get three different versions of ‘Indi’ that include revelations about some of his iconic trademarks and character traits.

River Phoenix plays a young Indiana on a scout trip into the mountains of Utah in 1912 who happens across a group of tomb raiders stealing an artefact.

Of course he leads them a merry chase, including across a train rooftop, trying to protect the artefact, but it’s all to no avail with corrupt authorities on the side of the bad guys.

During this prologue we also learn the origins of Indi’s trademark Fedora and whip, his eventual fear of snakes and how he got the scar on his chin.

And we get Sean Connery as Indi’s father who is as beligerent a character as he is brilliant, persists on calling his son Junior, shares Indi’s hatred of Nazis but has a phobia of rats rather than snakes.

Other interesting points about the film: it shows just how bad a teacher Indi is and how it means little to him other than access to money for expeditions – all the students adore him but he basically ignores them, is way behind on his marking, etc; it has great use of the locations, here moving from the US to Spain, Italy and finally the spectacular ancient city of Petra in Jordan; the Hindenburg exit scene and Hitler signing the diary scenes are terrific touches; and some of the stunt work is hair-raising, particularly the boat chase and propeller chomp and the motorbikes and sidecar.

The weakest parts of the film are the repetition of Raiders’ story and key plot points and the lack of chemistry between Ford and lead actress Alison Doody (who?) whose generally lifeless acting isn’t aided by her under-written part.

A lot of fun, but definitely ranking behind Raiders and Temple of Doom.