Review of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) by Swati — 08 Dec 2013

This is primarily an action movie, and it does its job of thrilling us with brilliant action sequences one after the other more than satisfactorily. Harrison Ford plays Dr. Indiana Jones, a professor of archaeology at an unnamed university. Don't let his profession fool you. In his spare time, he likes to go on prolonged hunts for antiquities. This hobby of his takes him from South America to Nepal to Egypt.

He finds trouble everywhere he goes, or trouble finds him. Indy is not interested in riches, but seeks to hand over each discovery he can to the museum. But Belloq, his nemesis, seems always to be one step ahead of him, and he has powerful friends who then have more friends of themselves, always among the local population. Shooting frequently breaks out wherever Indy goes, buildings explode, henchmen die and so on.

The main plot follows Indiana Jones on the search for the lost Ark, which the Nazis are digging for with the help of Belloq. An object that is a key toward finding it is with Marion, Indy's past love interest. Circumstances force them to go on the search together, but they must do this before the Nazis, who would stop at nothing to bring the Ark to Berlin for the Fuhrer, to use as a weapon.

The pacing was too fast at times and little time was left to develop the mythology and the importance of the Ark. We were expected to come into the film with a crash course on it. What the movie excels at is not making us Ark enthusiasts, but letting us glimpse what most treasure hunts must feel like to the people who pursue this course of action.

All the action might have bored an average viewer if not for the quirky lines that crack you up, uttered by the characters in the face of impending death. Indy doesn't seem to believe for one moment that all those bullets flying over his head could really hit him. Often times, he uses his whip to slash at opponents and as a fulcrum to propel himself forward or lower himself or hold onto something. It serves nearly unlimited purposes.

Set in 1936, the movie captures the look of the time as well as any other movie could. We have the cars, motorcycles, planes; and the dresses and uniforms and weapons. All this combines to create a very convincing world in which we absorb instantly.

The movie has more than its share of explosions, car chases, shooting, fist-fighting and all that. You hardly ever pause to reflect, or become bored for that matter. You never learn how the Nazis find out which ship was Indiana travelling in. All this is good, and I thoroughly enjoyed the movie, but what I couldn't digest was the ending. It isn't necessarily bad in any way. Actually it failed to make any kind of impact on me. It kind of fizzled out. I feel like it should have held true to the joyride which came before it. Go out with a blast, not with a fizzle. Surely greats like George Lucas and Steven Spielberg could have done better. It was too deus ex machina. I found it anticlimactic, and it lessened the effect the movie had on me until then.

Hailed as a great movie by many critics and audience alike, I cannot deny that I enjoyed the ride. But I can't concur in good conscience that this movie was great in light of the ending of the movie, though I will be fair and rate it as it deserves.