Review of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) by Larry H — 06 Aug 2017

Is it not a coincidence that the two people who wrote this film, Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, would later write the screenplay for another unpleasantly mean-spirited movie that would attempt to ram kid comedy with grotesque horror together? The hinted-at catastrophe: Howard the Duck.

That is where Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom goes so wrong: the unwillingness of the screenwriters to pick a mood and go with it. Harrison Ford is his usual charming self as the titular adventurer, but he's got nobody interesting to tag along with him.

And in a movie like this, the hero can only be about as interesting as the adventure he is given to undertake. Dodging the Nazis while searching for religious artifacts worked before and after this movie, but running from voodoo practitioners and being hypnotized into nearly throwing a comrade into the core of the earth is not what I had in mind for an Indiana Jones adventure.

The villains are memorable, but for all the wrong reasons. And his sidekicks are utterly obnoxious. It is hard to tell from this movie that Kate Capshaw is a talented actress. Her squealing and whining goes a long way and really fast.

And it is no big wonder why Jonathan Ka Quan, as the little kid, never had a kickoff career. Yes, he was just a kid when making this picture, but there is none of that real spark the audience looks for in a character we're meant to root for.