Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

• Directed by Steven Spielberg
• May 8, 1984 (Westwood) / May 23, 1984 (US)

Indiana Jones faces off against Thugee cultists as he aids desperate villagers seeking the return of a mystical stone.

It can be a bit of a trick to do a sequel that is not a rehash of its predecessor. It can also be a trick to do something different that still feels like it connects to the original. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom manages to do both.

We have dark magic and child slavery and human sacrifice all wrapped in a story involving Indy (Harrison Ford) aiding some villagers get back their Sankara stone gifted by the Hindu gods to humanity to fight evil. Never mind that their purpose in this film is to just make the lives of the villagers comfortable. No evil fighting there. Just giving those villagers an easier life.

Ford is enjoying himself up on the screen and that comes through to the audience. He gives his character nuances and life and turns them into a charming if not a touch roguish hero with enough of the present day that it doesn’t feel like a dated relic.

Joining Indy on this latest (though prequel) adventure is nightclub singer Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw) and Short Round (Ke Huy Quan in his film debut) who get sucked into things after a botched murder attempt after a deal at Club Obi Wan in Shanghai falls through.

Willie is much more of a damsel in distress and less capable than Marion Ravenwood with the overall relationship with Indiana being more antagonistic. The attempt at attraction falls a bit flat. I can see them getting along but not getting together. In any romantic way. Willie for her part isn’t a bad character, but she complains a little too much. She leans more into endlessly whining.

Short Round is clearly the cute and precocious sidekick of the story. That is his whole part in this. Not that he is given to just cuteness but that is his main thing. His comic relief was better than it should’ve been, and overall Ke Huy Quan offered a fine performance that elevated that made what he had better. No wonder his career is in a resurgence. He had talent back then and still does now.

Short Round is blindly supportive of a guy who apparently he just met on the street and hired. There’s every reason to think Indiana would’ve simply left Short Round back where he found him once Indy got the diamond at Club Obi Wan.

Mola Ram (Amrish Puri), a Thuggee priest, is the big villain of the movie with grand plans that sound like they border on world conquest of some type through the powers allowed by the stones that he now has in his possession and the two remainders he is searching for. He is a scary character and much more threatening than any other seen in the Indy series. His costuming is very reminiscent of some cheesy voodoo themed horror movie.

I enjoyed the Raiders reference with the two Thuggees who were twirling their swords. In a rather famous scene from the original movie where Indy shot an opponent doing a similar thing in a moment of necessity for Ford who was reportedly ill at the time. Nice callback that’s not very obvious.

The story mixes Indian history and religion with Hollywood imagination into a film that, while it honors adventure movies, is probably overall more of an accurate depiction of the elements it hits upon than what you would get from something that inspired it.

While the effects of Raiders still largely hold up today, I would say maybe 30% of those in Temple of Doom still hold up as much today as back then. At least when viewed on Blu-ray. Going off a bit of a tangent, I really wish companies would smooth such things out. Not redo but rather polish what was initially hidden by lower resolution mediums in order to keep the flow of the story.

Despite that nitpick, this is a well-done movie with plenty of iconic moments. And many of them have either become instantly recognizable to even most casual fans or have entered into the public consciousness in such a way that even if you haven’t seen Temple of Doom, you probably know where it’s from. I do not think there is a person that doesn’t recognize the mining car chase.

This is just a breezy and fast-moving ride. It’s a thrill a minute with an adrenaline-soaked story that pulls you in with plenty of weirdness and excitement. It is a good versus evil story with no shades of grey where the villain could be seen as kinda right.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a great follow up to the original. It’s got thrilling escapades and an exciting story that will appeal to the kid in you and is still a classic film.