1242. Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade (1989)

Starring: Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Denholm Elliott

Director: Steven Spielberg

Running Time: 127 mins

Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade is an American film and the third in the Indiana Jones series. After discovering his father has gone missing while searching for the Holy Grail, Indiana Jones must take on the quest for the Holy Grail, and prevent the Nazis who are also desperately searching for the source of eternal life.

Following the insanely dark Temple Of Doom, The Last Crusade returns Indiana Jones to the fun-loving adventure that we all adore. It’s still not up to the brilliance of Raiders Of The Lost Ark, but the excellent action, great mystery and brilliant performances all mean that this is a great way to finish off the original trilogy.

The main thing about The Last Crusade is that it’s a hell of a lot more fun than The Temple Of Doom. Whilst the thrill from that film came in the form of its dark and unsettling atmosphere, The Last Crusade is much more of a standard blockbuster adventure, and that means that you can have a great time without ever feeling like it’s too much to cope.

Once again, just like the previous two films, the action in this movie is amazing. Spielberg’s direction is absolutely stunning, but working in tandem with John Williams’ more upbeat score, The Last Crusade provides some of the most high-stakes and entertaining action sequences of the whole series.

Meanwhile, the performances here are excellent too. Harrison Ford is as perfect as ever in the lead role, but it’s Sean Connery’s performance that’s the real stand-out. Showing a great sense of humour to play the father of Indiana Jones, and managing to hold his own in action sequences in ways we haven’t seen since his Bond days, Connery is so much fun to watch.

And the chemistry between the two leads is brilliant too. Ford and Connery play off one another so well throughout, and are one of the most convincing and entertaining father-son duos I’ve ever seen. However, the fact that you can believe their relationship so easily has an even greater effect in the latter stages, as their emotional bond really adds to the excitement and drama of the finale, which is something that we definitely haven’t seen in this series before.

With regards to the story, it’s a lot of fun. Particularly in the first act, the mystery surrounding the whereabouts of Indy’s father and the Holy Grail is fascinating, and means that this definitely has the most interesting opening act of the series, as Raiders and Temple occasionally lagged when setting up their story.

But I do have a big issue with the story, and that’s regarding its lightness. Of course, I love a good, fun blockbuster, but I felt that The Last Crusade was almost too light-hearted on the whole to be as exciting as the previous two films. It’s by far the most similar to James Bond of all the films, and in that, the plot does feel a lot more like a generic blockbuster.

Raiders Of The Lost Ark was a stunning tribute to classic adventure serials, and just felt so much like those films, whilst The Temple Of Doom’s dark atmosphere gave it a striking uniqueness that you just didn’t expect from this series. However, with The Last Crusade, it feels too much like a modern blockbuster for my liking, not really playing to the greatest strengths of this series.

Overall, The Last Crusade is undoubtedly a fun film. Its light atmosphere and brilliant action make it a thoroughly enjoyable watch, helped further by the fantastic performances, but the fact that it didn’t feel so unique amongst the action genre frustrated me at times, and that’s why I’m going to give this an 8.0.