Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

Starring: Harrison Ford, Kate Capshaw, and Ke Huy Quan with a cameo from Dan Aykroyd
Grade: Classic

Well, if we learned anything coming out of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, it’s that you should never betray Shiva.

Summary

In Shanghai, China in 1935, a year before the events of Raiders of the Lost Ark, Willie Scott (Capshaw) performs as the main singing attraction of night club, Club Obi-Wan. Once she’s done and the dancers take a break, archaeologist Indiana Jones (Ford) makes his way into the club and is told by his waiter friend Wu Han (David Yip) to be careful. Jones sits down with Triad crime boss Lao Che (Roy Chiao) and impresses him by speaking some Chinese, adding that he only uses it on special occasions. Hearing this, Lao asks if he’s found Nurhachi. Jones knows that Lao is already aware he has it, calling Lao out for sending his guys to grab it without paying for it. Just then, one of Lao’s guys clutches his injured hand. It turns out that it’s Lao’s son and he tells Jones that he’s insulted him. Jones calmly replies that Lao has actually insulted him. Willie comes over and has Lao introduce her to Jones. Once she sits down next to Jones, Lao tells Willie that Jones has found Nurhachi for him and is to deliver it now. After he says this, Lao’s son points his gun in Jones’s direction. Jones responds by grabbing a knife from the table and holding it to Willie’s ribs, demanding he gets what he’s owed. Lao relents, takes a small bag out of his jacket, puts it on the swinging centerpiece of the table, and spins it around to Jones’s side of the table. Jones has Willie look inside of it, so he can keep the knife on her. She empties out the coins from the bag, prompting Jones to remind Lao that their deal was for the diamond. Willie gives the bag back. Knowing he’s stuck, Lao gives up the diamond. Jones grabs a drink and intends on sarcastically toasting to Lao, but an annoyed Willie stands up and bumps him while she yells at Lao for Jones putting two holes in her dress from Paris. Jones kicks her seat over. Lao tells Jones to bring him Nurhachi. Jones gestures to Wu Han who brings over a small but elaborate urn. Inside are the remains of Nurhachi, the first Emperor of the Manchu Dynasty. Jones finishes his drink thinking that he won.

However, Lao oddly asks for the diamond back and his cohorts laugh. He then shows Jones and Willie how he has the antidote to the poison Jones just drank. Jones puts the diamond on the table but grabs Willie and holds the knife to her ribs again. Lao laughs and tells Jones to keep Willie because he will just find another.

Wu Han holds out his gun under his serving tray while he stands alongside Jones. Jones demands the antidote. Suddenly, someone pops some champagne and distracts them momentarily. One of Lao’s men times a gunshot at the same time as the popping of the cork and shoots Wu Han right in the chest. He drops the gun on the table and Lao’s son snatches it immediately. It doesn’t take long for Wu Han to die in Jones’s arms right after once he gets a moment to reminisce about their many adventures together. Lao starts talking trash to Jones about how he will join Wu Han soon. Jones gets up from the table and is beginning to feel the effects, but he musters up enough strength to grab an on-fire rack of meat about to be served and throws it like a spear directly into the chest of the man that shot Wu Han. The man fires his gun blindly, and everyone in the club starts screaming and running. Jones uses the distraction to jump onto the table to grab the antidote, but he knocks it off the table. Next, Jones starts attacking Lao’s guys. In the middle of the scuffle, the antidote and the diamond get knocked onto the dance floor. Jones turns and punches a waitress thinking it was one of Lao’s men, and then he’s picked up by two guys and slammed onto a serving cart. He nearly grabs the antidote from the floor, but it’s kicked away. At the same time, Willie tries to grab the diamond from the floor, but the same thing happens. Lao’s men run the cart into the stage, and Jones crashes onto it. Jones and Willie dive onto the floor looking for their respective objects, but they are continuously kicked by everyone running around. Jones almost runs into the dancers from the club before he turns and narrowly avoids Triad members throwing knives at him. Jones throws a dish like a frisbee at the one gangster, and he kicks over an ice holder. Ice goes all over the floor where the diamond is, and Willie screams. Willie finds the antidote and puts it in her dress.

Jones sees what she did and yells at her to stay there, but she doesn’t notice him. Jones fights off Triad members while balloons are released from the ceiling. After Jones splashes a drink in his own face to stay awake, Lao’s son grabs a machine gun and starts firing. Jones hides behind a giant gong. Next, he grabs a sword and cuts the gong loose, using it as a shield so he can run to safety as it moves. He grabs Willie on the way, and the gong breaks the window open. Jones and Willie jump out the window, free fall through several canopies until one supports their weight, bounce to one on the other side of the alleyway and then land in a convertible driven by Jones’s kid friend, Short Round (Quan). On Jones’s word, Short Round drives out of there (“Okey dokey Dr. Jones. Hold onto your potatoes!”). They drive off, and Lao and his men are in hot pursuit in another car. During the drive, Jones wrestles Willie for the antidote, though she thinks he’s trying to feel her up. Once he downs the liquid, Jones immediately starts shooting at Lao’s car. As Short Round drives a rickshaw off the road, Jones shoots the machine gun-toting gangster in the passenger seat of Lao’s car. Jones has Willie hold his gun for a moment, but she drops it out of the moving car because it burnt her fingers and she cracked a nail. They drive to an airport, and Art Weber (Aykroyd) is there to greet them. He spoke with Jones’s assistant and secured them three seats on the plane that is about to leave. The catch is that they will be placed in the cargo which is filled with live poultry. It’s the best he can do on short notice. As they make their way to the plane, Weber recognizes Willie as the famous American singer. They get to the plane just as Lao shows up, and Jones uses the opportunity to laugh at Lao and tell him nice try. Unbeknownst to him, the plane is owned by Lao, as “Lao Che Air Freight” is painted on the door. Lao bids Jones goodbye and laughs along with his son. Nevertheless, Jones, Willie, and Short Round fly off.

Sometime after, Jones switches back into his signature gear, prompting Willie to jokingly as if he’s a lion tamer. Okay, not bad, Willie.

Jones gives Willie his dinner jacket he was wearing earlier and mentions how he’s allowing her to tag along, so he wants her to stop talking. She thinks Jones hasn’t been able to keep his eyes off her since the club, so he responds by putting his fedora over his eyes to get some sleep. Later, all three are asleep and the two pilots take notice. They dump the fuel and jump out of the plane, as they were obviously Lao’s men. Willie wakes up because they left the door open and snow is flying in, and she realizes the pilots are gone. She wakes up Jones to the news, but he doesn’t know how to fly either. He attempts to try but sees how low they are on fuel, as the red alert button turns on. Short Round adds that there are no more parachutes. Thinking quickly, Jones grabs a raft from the plane and all three get on it, leaping out of the plane while holding onto the raft as it inflates in the air. As the plane crashes into some mountains, the raft inflates completely, and the trio slide down the mountain, off a cliff, and into an aggressive body of water nearby that eventually fizzles out downstream. As they finally get a chance to relax, Jones realizes they are in India after seeing a village Shaman (D. R. Nanayakkara) staring at them from the land. Jones gestures that he comes in peace, and the Shaman points them in a direction to walk. The Shaman leads them into a small village, and the poor townsfolk surround Jones and Willie and feel on their clothes and hair. One old lady tries to grab Short Round, but he politely pushes her away as best he can. Later, the villagers serve food to Jones, Willie, and Short Round, and Jones uses the little bit of his knowledge on the language to thank them. Willie doesn’t want to eat the food, but Jones tells her that what they have been given is more than what these people eat in a week. He tells her to eat it, but she now tries to tell him that she’s not hungry, even though she was just complaining how she was starving seconds ago. Jones replies that she’s insulting them and embarrassing him. Finally, she goes through with it.

Jones asks if they have a guide to take him to Delhi because he’s a professor and has to get back to his university. One man says Sajnu will guide them. The Shaman tells Jones that on his way to Delhi, he is to stop at Pankot. Jones is confused because Pankot is not on the way to Delhi, but the Shaman continues and adds that they are to go to Pankot Palace. Jones thought it was deserted, but the Shaman just bypasses this and comments how the palace has the power of the Dark Light. It is that place that killed his people. It started there and the darkness spread across the country, according to the Shaman. These people came from the palace and took Shivalinga from their village. Shivalinga is a sacred stone from a shrine that protects the village. The Shaman laughs, realizing that Shiva has brought Jones here for this reason. Jones tries to explain how their plane crashed, and they weren’t actually brought there. However, the Shaman replies that they prayed to Shiva to help them find the stone. It was Shiva who made them fall from the sky. This is why the Shaman wants Jones to go to Pankot Palace to find Shivalinga to bring back to their village. Once they leave the hut, Short Round asks Jones if these people made the plane crash to get him there, but he passes it off as a ghost story and tells him to not worry about it. Even so, Jones is led to where the stone was usually held in the center of the village. He asks if the stone was smooth like a rock from a sacred river with three lines across it to represent the three levels of the universe, and they confirm. Jones does say he’s seen stones like the ones they have lost, but he questions why the Maharajah would take the sacred stone from there. The Shaman explains that they have told them they must pray to their evil god. Their village refused. Willie asks how a single rock could destroy a whole village. Translating for the Shaman, Jones tells Willie that when the sacred stone was taken, the village wells dried up, and the river turned to sand. The crops were swallowed by the earth, and the animals laid down and turned to dust.

Plus, there was a massive fire that distracted the adults one night, and it led to all of their children being stolen. That night in the village, a sickly child named Ranjit approaches Jones. He falls into Jones’s arms, tells him “Sankara”, and gives him a pictograph. As his mother takes Ranjit away, Jones looks at the picture and realizes its Sankara. Following this, Short Round runs over to Jones to tell him that Ranjit escaped from the palace. There are still many children there. He asks what they’re going to do. As a shooting star flies by, Jones details that someone thinks the “good luck rock” from this village is one of the lost Sankara Stones. When Short Round asks what Sankara is, Jones replies, “Fortune and glory”. The next day, Jones, Short Round, and Willie ride elephants out of the village and head for Pankot Palace. Willie is still reluctant and struggles to get on the elephant correctly, but she doesn’t really have a choice. During the trip, she tries to make things better by putting perfume on the smelly elephant, but it yells. Short Round tries to talk to his elephant about coming to America with him to join the circus. He even calls it his best friend. After they see some daytime bats, Willie tries to put more perfume on the elephant, prompting the animal to grab water with its trunk to spray Willie in the face. She falls into the pond and then starts complaining about how she was happy in Shanghai and how her friends were rich. She goes on enough of a rant that Jones says they will camp there for the night. That night, Willie dries her clothes by the fire while Short Round beats Jones at poker. She asks where he found Short Round, so Jones reveals that he actually “caught” him. Short Round’s family were killed when the Japanese bombed Shanghai. He’s been living on the streets since he was 4. He caught Short Round trying to pickpocket him. As Willie screams after she runs into a bat, a monkey, a snake, an owl, and a lizard of some sort, Short Round calls Jones out for cheating in their game because he took out four cards. Jones argues that they were stuck together, and they go back and forth until he sees that Short Round had a card up his sleeve the whole time.

They argue until they both quit, and Willie rejoins them to tell them they are surrounded. While Willie calms down a little bit, Jones asks her about her name. She says it’s her professional name while sarcastically pointing out his name being “Indiana”. Short Round is quick to tell Willie that she is to refer to him as “Dr. Jones”, so Jones flips him some change and calls it his professional name. Next, she asks if he’s dragging them to this deserted palace for fortune and glory. Jones pulls out the piece of the pictograph Ranjit gave him. It represents Sankara, a priest. It’s hundreds of years old and written in Sanskrit. It’s part of the legend of Sankara. Jones reads it to her, “He climbs Mount Kalisa where he meets Shiva, the Hindu god”. Shiva told him to go forth and combat evil. To help him, he gave him five sacred stones with magical properties. Willie laughs this off because her grandfather was a magician and died a poor man. She tries to go to bed, and Jones suggests she sleep closer to him for safety purposes. She doesn’t have any interest. A snake gets by her head, and it freaks out Jones who backs up. Thinking it’s the elephant still messing with her, Willie blindly grabs the snake and throws it. The next day, they continue their trek and can see Pankot Palace in the distance. They stop along the way somewhere due to the elephant handlers being freaked out by some sacred statues. Jones investigates them, and a red paint gets on his hand. Short Round asks what’s happening, and Jones tells him to not come up where he is at. There is a change in the air, and the elephant handlers and the elephants run in the opposite direction, leaving Jones, Willie, and Short Round alone. Jones isn’t surprised and just tells them that they walk from there. Later, they get to the palace and are greeted by Prime Minister of the Maharaja Chattar Lal (Roshan Seth). Jones assures Chattar they aren’t lost and are on their way to Delhi. He introduces them, and Chatter has surprisingly heard of Jones when he was over at Oxford.

Sometime after, they all get cleaned up for a dinner party at the palace. Chatter introduces Jones to British India Army officer Captain Philip Blumburtt (Philip Stone), 11th Poona Rifles. Chatter says Blumburtt and his troops are on a routine inspection tour and cheekily adds that the British find it amusing to inspect them at their convenience. After Short Round gets scared by some dancers, Willie joins the men dressed in traditional Indian garb and tells Jones that the Maharaja is swimming in loot, so it may not have been a bad idea coming there after all. Even so, Jones compliments her and says she looks like a princess. Willie bypasses this to ask Chatter the name of the Maharaja’s wife. When Chatter reveals that he hasn’t gotten married yet, she starts thinking of the possibilities. Eventually, all the guests are brought to the dinner table and the Maharajah of Pankot in Zalim Singh (Raj Singh) is introduced by Chatter. To Willie’s surprise, he’s a child. During dinner, Jones brings up to Chatter how he was speaking to Blumburtt about the history of the palace and the importance it played in the mutiny. Chatter comments how the British never seem to forget the Mutiny of 1857. Blumburtt just laughs. However, Jones tries to get him back on topic, mentioning how there were other events before the mutiny, going back a century to the time of Clive. As a giant snake is being served, Chatter asks what events Jones is referring to. He brings up specifically how this province was the center of activity for the Thuggee. Just as the server cuts open the snake to reveal live snakes inside of it to a shocked Willie and Short Round, Chatter points out how Jones knows the Thuggee cult has been dead for nearly a century. Blumburtt doubles down on this and mentions how Thuggee was an obscenity that worshipped Kali with human sacrifices. He says that the British Army did away with him. As people are eating live snakes at the table, Jones continues to press the topic. Chatter assures him there are no more stories about the cult, but Jones points out how the small village they came from told him directly how Pankot Palace has grown powerful again due to an ancient evil.

Chatter passes this off as fear, folklore, and village stories.

He tells Jones that he’s beginning to worry Blumburtt, but Blumburtt is just fighting off one of the live snakes from the table. Next, they are served a plate of dead beetles. At this point, Willie isn’t eating anything. She asks Short Round for his hat to puke in, but he pulls it back from her. Jones tells Chatter that the peasant villagers also revealed Pankot Palace had taken something. Chatter gets anxious and talks about how a guest in the country shouldn’t insult his host. Jones smiles and apologizes but then gets serious and comments, “I thought we were talking about folklore”, as it’s clear at this point that Chatter is hiding something. While Willie asks the waiter if they have soup, Blumburtt asks Jones what the villagers said was stolen. Not breaking eye contact with Chatter, Jones replies that it was a sacred rock. Chatter laughs this off. Willie is served a bowl that looks to be soup, but it has eyeballs in it and her and Short Round freak out. Jones continues about how there is something connected to the villagers’ rock and the old legend of the Sankara Stones. Chatter replies by bringing up how Jones was accused of being a grave robber rather than an archaeologist in Honduras, prompting Jons to reply how the newspapers greatly exaggerated the incident. Chatter also brings up how the Sultan of Madagascar threatened to cut Jones’s head off if he ever returned to the country. Jones says it wasn’t his head or his hands. He looks down and implies it was his dick, though he just says it was “My misunderstanding”. A straight-faced Chatter tells Jones sternly that this is exactly what they have here. Suddenly, the Maharahaj Singh interrupts to say he has heard the evil stories of the Thuggee cult and thought they were told to frighten children. Later, he learned they were real and did unspeakable things. He’s ashamed of what happened those many years ago and assures Jones this will never happen again in his kingdom. Jones apologizes to him if he offended him. They are all then served desert, which happens to be chilled monkey brains. Willie faints.

After dinner, Jones walks with Short Round down the hall, and he tells Short Round that he’s going to check on Willie. Short Round goes to his room but is quick to tell him, “That’s all you better do. Tell me later what happened”.

Jones goes to knock on Willie’s door, but she opens it before he can even try. He says he has something she wants, but she has no interest. He turns his back to her and takes a bite out of an apple, so Willie relents and takes a bite out of it. Jones gives her a plate of fruit too since he knows she hasn’t eaten. She calls him a “nice man” and jokes he could be her palace slave. Jones goes into her room and asks if she’s wearing her jewels to bed. Willie confirms but adds flirtatiously that she doesn’t wear anything else. They start flirting heavily and eventually kiss. She admits she can be difficult, but he says he’s had worse (“But you’ll never have better”). While closing the doors, Jones jokes how he isn’t sure about this. He says that as a scientist, he doesn’t want to prejudice his experiments and will let her know in the morning how things go. Willie reopens the door, calls him a conceited ape, and how she’s not that easy. Jones argues that he isn’t that easy either, and her problem is that she’s too used to getting her own way. With this, Jones leaves the room. Willie retorts that he’s too proud to admit that he’s crazy about her. Jones stands by the doorway of his room and says that if she wants him, she knows where to find him. Willie thinks he will be back at her door in five minutes, but he assures her that he will be asleep in five minutes. Jones sits on his bed and immediately looks at his clock. In her room, she does the same. They both prepare for the other’s arrival while checking themselves out in the mirror and such. They then both separately dissect the lines they said to each other before they both come to the realization that neither are making their way to each other’s rooms. Just then, a hidden member of the palace attacks Jones and tries killing him. Short Round is still somehow asleep in the same room. Willie exits her room and shouts across the hall that this is the night Jones will remember that she slipped through his fingers. As she talks about how she could have been his greatest adventure, Jones is being choked by the assassin. Jones fights him off, and Short Round wakes him up and throws him his whip.

Jones uses it to choke the assassin momentarily, but the assassin pushes him off. Jones latches the whip around his neck and throws it into the ceiling fan. It pulls the assassin into the air and hangs him. Jones runs over to Willie’s room to see if she’s been attacked, though she is laying in the bed thinking he finally changed his mind. He searches her room frantically but doesn’t find an assassin. He feels a statue and then pushes it forward into the wall, as it ends up unlocking a secret passageway. Jones lights a match and sees a picture painted on the wall. He reads the message in Sanskrit, “Follow the footsteps of Shiva”. He matches it with his pictograph, and it says, “Do not betray these truths”. Once Short Round joins the two to hear the message, Jones tells him to get their stuff.

It’s time to investigate Pankot Palace. Those villagers were right, and Indiana Jones knows it.

My Thoughts:

Reaching the standard set by Raiders of the Lost Ark was seemingly an impossible task. No one would fault the creative minds behind the series for not being able to reach this insanely high bar. All anyone wanted was just for Indiana Jones to return in some fashion. If he did, people would come out in droves to see him. With this in mind and despite the difficulty in maintaining the momentum of its predecessor, they somehow managed to achieve the impossible and with a prequel no less, which is almost unheard of. Through the combined efforts of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas both going through divorces and delivering a darker continuation of the series because of it, audiences were treated to one of the greatest prequels of all time in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, a groundbreaking blockbuster that helped lead to the creation of the PG-13 rating.

In one of the coolest opening scenes since Raiders, audiences get to see Indiana Jones reaching his potential as basically America’s James Bond. Donning the ice-cold white dinner jacket, Jones deals with gangsters, diamonds, and poison in a smooth, underground nightclub in Shanghai in an effort to further stretch how far they can take this character and expand the parameters of the franchise. The format introduced here in taking Jones out of the classroom, placing him in random countries, and involving him with new villains and artifacts to find is undefeated. Maybe I’m alone in this, but they could have done 10 sequels in the style of Temple of Doom while keeping a revolving door with its supporting cast, and I would have watched every single one of them without argument. Thankfully, there are dozens of Indiana Jones books in existence with this idea in mind. Nevertheless, this prequel’s character reintroduction is a great way to depict an even younger, no holds barred Jones who is even more of a risk taker and all-around badass than before or since. Whether it’s fearlessly talking shit to a Prime Minister and implying that he is part of a cult that raided a village on the same day he meets him to taking on the task of saving said village due to them believing the Hindu god Shiva sending him there in yet another situation of divine intervention, Indiana Jones goes takes us an yet another highly entertaining, pulpy adventure that pays homage to the serials and action-adventure movies of the early years of Hollywood that inspired the franchise. With Ford arguably being at his all-time best, some of the best action of the series, great locations, even more Academy Award-winning visual effects, and some of the coolest action hero moments of all time, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom has a legitimate claim to being the best of the series. That is how tough the competition is in this franchise in determining the best all-around production. And as we said before, a prequel having this amount of acclaim is rare, but Temple of Doom deserves its praise and then some. It also goes without saying that it’s one of the best films coming out of a stacked 1984 too, a year that included Beverly Hills Cop, Ghostbusters, and Once Upon a Time in America.

What a year!

As great as Raiders of the Lost Ark is in terms of its action, it can be argued that Temple of Doom may exceed it in comparison. This could not be more true during the elongated sequence of the shootout and fight in the temple and mines between Jones and the many guards, and Jones subsequently using his whip to swing to the mine cart to lead the viewer directly into what would become an all-time chase sequence on the dueling mine carts is just a sliver of this absolute, rollercoaster thrill ride of epic proportions. Again, scenes like these are why we go to the movies. For an adventure film both undeniably awesome and certifiably frightening, moments like this and the rope bridge climax that solidifies Indiana Jones’s claim as the greatest cinematic hero in existence are so engrossing on every level, it makes the viewer imagine how amazing this would have been watching on its opening night. It feels like you’re watching cinematic history. That’s how special this prequel is. Right after Jones, Short Round, and Willie narrowly escape the trap room and finally get to see the titular temple for the first time, the viewer is on the edge of their seat for literally the rest of the movie. The entire second half is pure exhilaration, and the viewer will find their eyes widened to the point where they feel like they are bursting out of their head as Jones attempts a daring move to scale the side of the wall to get onto the main stage of the temple after the room clears. Mind you, mere minutes before, the horned helmet-wearing Mola Ram pulled the heart out of an innocent slave easily while the man stayed alive, Ram invoked the name of Kali, sent the slave into a pit below them that basically goes straight to hell as a form of human sacrifice, and a sea of Thuggee followers cheered him on as it happened. Why does Jones decide almost immediately after that he could snatch the glowing Sankara Stones straight from the skull statue resting place? Well, calling back to the classic line from Raiders of the Lost Ark, it’s because Jones embodies the mantra of making it up as he goes long more than ever before, as he makes a series of hair-raising decisions that seem to be purely Jones acting on instinct.

For example, when he gets his first glimpse of the child slaves mining and getting whipped, he doesn’t try to figure out a plan or stay incognito until he can think of something while he’s in hiding. He reacts out of emotion, throwing a stone and hitting one of the guards in the head, despite knowing full and well that he’s outnumbered 1 to 100 in this giant temple. It results in him being caught and thrown in a cage with Short Round and another kid, but he doesn’t look down on the moment in the slightest. It’s just a momentary pause where Jones rolls with the punches and tries to figure out what’s next. He surveys the scene and gets an idea of what he’s up against. Of course, it’s a terror like nothing we’ve ever seen. This unknown kid on the verge of becoming on of the hundreds of child slaves is open in telling Jones and Short Round that he prays to Shiva to let him die. However, he hasn’t yet, and he expects for the evil of Kali to take him, and he tells the two about how he will be forced to drink the blood of Kali, making him fall into the Black Sleep of the Kali Ma. Jones questions what this is, and the poor kid replies, “We become like them. We are alive but live like a nightmare”. The concerned glance Short Round and Jones share hearing this tells the story for us. To sell this terror our heroes are facing, the viewer must be convinced of such a threat. Though the combination of Belloq, Tohl, and the Nazi Army is hard to beat, Mola Ram is someone who takes on this challenge and exceeds expectations. An insanely memorable villain, Ram reaches the previous crop of villains’ combined efforts with a striking character design, the piercing eyes of actor Amrish Puri, and his elaborate backstory and reasoning for leading the Thuggee. He tells Jones about there being five stones in total and how they were dispersed by wars and sold off over the centuries. Noting how he only has three Sankara Stones, Ram details how the British raided the temple 100 years ago and killed his people, but a loyal priest hid the last two stone somewhere in the catacombs.

This is his reasoning for the child slaves, as he sees them as digging “for the gems to support our cause”, and it will lead to the Thuggee becoming all-powerful when they get all five. Instead of torturing or killing the defiant, shit-talking Jones, Mola Ram takes it a step further and does the most outrageous thing a villain has ever attempted on our hero, surpassing anything the Nazis or the Russians do to him. After they whip Jones and Singh tortures a voodoo doll of him by putting it near the fire, Mola Ram decides to make Jones a true believer of the cause by making him drink the blood of Kali right out of a skull and forcing it down his throat. Then, Mola states aloud his plan or Kali Ma’s rather for world domination that doesn’t get nearly as much attention in the grand scheme of the franchise that it should (“The British in India will be slaughtered. Then we will overrun the Muslims. Then the Hebrew God will fall, and then the Christian god will be cast down and forgotten!”). Jones starts convulsing and moving his body in strange ways as the Black Sleep of the Kali Ma takes over, and he’s placed on a stone slab surrounded by candles right after. Short Round’s reaction to Jones’s trancelike state is chilling. With this moment and Jones standing alongside Chatter as Willie is brought in to be the next sacrifice, the viewer for a short period of time believes wholeheartedly that there is no hope (“I’m not going to have anything nice to say about this place when I get back! Indy! For God sakes help! What’s a matter with you?”). That closeup of the evil Ram filling the screen while looking at Jones is pure cinema. The suspense, anticipation, and adrenaline-fueled sequence of Short Round having the courage to break out of his shackles in the camp, Willie getting inches away from the portal to hell, and the chants from the Thuggee getting louder and louder is something deserving of the big screen treatment. Once again, it’s the stuff of legends that only this franchise hits on with such confident consistency.

At the same time, the emotion is real too, as a teary-eyed Short Round going for broke and jumping on the main stage to burn Jones with the torch to break him out of the Black Sleep could break your heart (“Indy, I love you. Wake up, Indy! You’re my best friend!”). As crazy as it is when you think about it, this precocious street kid from China is only in one production out of the entire franchise, but he’s one of the most beloved characters of the entire series and it’s obvious why. The sheer amount of love and amusement stemming from Indy’s kid sidekick is just purely delightful. Bursting with personality and charisma, the young Ke Huy Quan shines with every funny soundbite, and his devotion to Jones and their friendship being as strong as it is in this one-off is a cool development. He looks at Jones as a strong mentor, and he sees himself as Jones’s Robin, even though their friendship is probably closer to a father/son sort of thing, which is why we get funny moments like Jones putting his hand under his chin and Short Round seeing it and copying him. Really, Short Round is the heart of this prequel. You can’t help but smile watching “Shorty” try his best in helping Jones to mixed results. It’s like when they first start investigating the hidden passageway, and Jones gives him strict instructions to stay behind him and to only step where he steps. Being the curious kid that he is, Short Round immediately pulls on a latch on the wall, it shatters, and two skeletons pop out and scare him. Minutes later, they get into the trap room and Short Round steps onto the button that was at the doorway, triggering a stone tablet to cover the wall and the exit door to close at the same time. Jones trying to react in time but accepting defeat and not saying anything out of frustration was hilarious. The follow-up of him telling Short Round to stand up against the wall, and he bumps into yet another trigger mechanism that makes the spiked ceiling come down onto them was just a perfect encapsulation of their comedic chemistry (“You said to stand against wall!”). It did get a little annoying at how many times Jones has to tell him to lower his voice though, especially after Mola Ram holds the burning heart in his hand and the three Sankara Stones are put into the skull for the diamonds inside them to glow.

Do you not see what is going on right now? You have got to learn how to read the room at some point.

Regardless of the horror elements that the movie is known for like the inclusion of voodoo dolls and such which allows for Short Round to put a whooping on the Maharajah, there is still a lot of humor inserted to lighten the mood. Jones’s face seen through the hole of the trap room while stressing “Willie, we are going to die!” is a classic Indiana Jones moment delivered in the most “Harrison Ford” way possible. Some other amusing breathers in the midst of the thrill ride are when Jones thinks he knocks the guard off the mine cart and smiles at Willie before the guy pops up again to punch him, Jones requesting water after stopping the cart tires with his own feet only to see the tunnel flooding with water right after, Jones pulling a Han Solo when running after one guy and yelling like a madman but going back in the opposite directions after he runs into the army of cultists, and Willie accidentally hitting the lever after saving them to restart the process of the trap, forcing Jones to rush her out of the exit door and just barely escaping with his hat.

It’s a prequel simply filled with iconic moments like the latter. In the third act alone, there are too many of these moments to count, as Ford’s performance and aura reaches a level very few movie stars have ever been lucky enough to get to. When the silhouette of Jones steps in front of the mine cart before he punches out the guard to begin the whirlwind climax, chills can be felt down the spine. The same could be said of Jones getting close to being crushed to death on the conveyer belt fight scene, but Short Round being able to take the pin out of the voodoo doll in time to save him and Jones immediately pulls his head up in an adrenaline burst fueled by the theme music hitting. Even though it’s questionable as to why Singh didn’t just keep the pin inside the doll instead of continuously taking it out, it’s quickly forgotten about following the aforementioned all-time movie moment that will be replayed forever in our consciousness of Jones using his whip to swing to the cart Willie and Short Round are in. The wide shot of Jones on the bridge? Stop it. How many times do we have to say it? This is what movies are made for! On the romance side of things, is there anything cooler than Jones using the whip to pull Willie to him for a kiss? No, there isn’t. It literally doesn’t get better than that. Additionally, as stated in the review of Raiders of the Lost Ark, the fight choreography isn’t elaborate at all and is reminiscent of a 1930s or 1940s film, but it’s just another example as to how incredible Indiana Jones is. With just movie star charisma, great music, creative and big-time moments that payoff at the highest level, and outstanding set pieces, these simple fight scenes that our protagonist finds himself in are just as enthralling if not more so than most modern action movies. It’s a testament to great storytelling, acting, and directing all coming together for a perfect storm of blockbuster fun.

When we talk Indiana Jones, the set pieces are always a topic of discussion as well, and the eponymous “Temple of Doom” is one the greatest set designs ever made. It’s like a boy’s action figure playset come to life. Visually striking, demonically lit, and fantastically constructed to fit the bill of this life-threatening mission Jones is faces, it’s unforgettable. When even Jones gulps at the sight of the terrifying Thuggee ceremony and his comment to Willie that “Nobody’s seen this for 100 years”, the cinematic goosebumps are felt through the screen. The shot of the burning lava hole to hell is flat-out incredible work by the effects team too, as was the mine cart chase when Short Round is being fought over between two carts and lava is seen below them. Combining this with the shaky cam effect to make the viewer feel like they are on the rollercoaster with them and the breakneck speed of the last 40 minutes of the film in general, audiences will come out of this film as devoted fans of the franchise. It’s a virtual guarantee.

There’s also a lot of gross-out moments present that have become an endearing part of the saga. We’re not talking about the dinner scene where the characters are eating monkey brains or live snakes. That just felt like part of the pulp entertainment one would find in of those old comics from the timeframe. No, the real scene that can still make us uncomfortable no matter how many times we watch it is the cave scene before they enter the temple. You know the one – the one with the bugs. It’s dark, and Short Round comments how it feels like they are stepping on fortune cookies, prompting Jones to light a match to find a million creepie crawlies of all shapes and sizes covering the place. They’re real, they’re alive, and it makes it difficult to even type this as I shiver thinking about it. It’s one of those scenes that is so visceral in its depiction that you can feel them. Harrison Ford and Ke Huy Quan somehow getting through this, and Jones just knocking off the giant insect on Short Round’s leg without flinching for a second is arguably just as impressive as securing the Sankara Stones themselves. It really is just snakes with our protagonist. The man is fearless otherwise. With that being said, it still boggles the mind as to why when him and Helena run into a similar situation in Dial of Destiny when they make their way through the cave to Archimedes’ Tomb, Jones freaks out over bugs being on him. His whole thing is that he’s only legitimately afraid of snakes, so it makes no sense as to why he reacted it like that in the final film. Even so, Kate Capshaw’s Willie having to stick her hand through that bug-infested hole to pull the fulcrum release lever is one of the very few times where her screaming was warranted, along with one jump-scare of the henchman coming out of nowhere. Speaking of which, the only noticeable drawback of the film is Willie. Kate Capshaw’s shrill performance sticks out like a sore thumb and is the complete opposite of the calm, cool, and resilient Marion Ravenwood. Though this was by design to differentiate her from Marion, it didn’t do her any favors.

Willie isn’t funny, she has an annoying personality that only wins you over in a Stockholm Syndrome type of way, and she’s just not as attractive as she’s portrayed to be. Is it crazy to say that Indiana Jones is actually out of her league?

On the production side of things, there’s a moment where Jones tells Willie he’s not leaving there without the stones, her telling him that he’s going to get killed chasing after his “damn fortune and glory”, and his response of “Maybe, but not today” before he kisses her. Right after, Kate Capshaw looks directly at the camera. Was this intentional? This felt odd. On the other hand, the ironic line of Willie questioning why he didn’t keep the rock and Jones replying, “Oh, what for? They would’ve just put it in a museum. It’d be another rock collecting dust” when it later becomes the character’s calling card was funny. We know that was intentional. Furthermore, after the initial rope break in the climax where Jones and Mola Ram are fighting and Short Round is reminding Jones to cover his heart, I will say that Jones utilizing the Moe Howard eye poke would have allowed him to win this exchange almost immediately. He would have never saw it coming. Sorry, the Three Stooges are on the brain more than we’d like to admit. Actually, Moe, Larry, and Curly may have been some of Mola Ram’s archers based on how bad their aim was with Jones on that bridge. They had one target! How the hell did they miss him that much? Are they not professionals?

A special shoutout goes to the one guard that absorbed a shot from a sledgehammer-swinging Jones, took it from him, and threw the sledgehammer with one hand to hit some random guy in the head. The fact that this random henchman was able to do that with ease, and Jones was STILL able to come out on top further adds to Jones’s claim as being the greatest cinematic hero there ever was because who the hell would mess with that guy? Did you see how easily he dropped Jones like a sack of potatoes in that cart? On top of that, the sheer audacity Jones possesses in Temple of Doom in taking on everyone in the manner that he does in the third act, in an effort to do the right thing, and with minor help at best from Short Round and Willie, certifies his legend. It’s all capped off by the aforementioned bridge scene that is the greatest Indiana Jones moment in the franchise’s history (“Mola Ram, prepare to meet Kali. In Hell!”). Just Jones’s response by looking at the henchmen cultists on both sides closing in on him and saying to himself “Oh shit” is hilariously him at his finest. It’s the honesty and authenticity of Indy in every situation that separates him from most protagonists. As the tribal music becomes thunderous and the intensity reaches a near fever pitch, Jones again goes with his approach of making it up as he goes along and hoping for the best. Truthfully, we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is the mother of all prequels. Maintaining the standard set by its all-time predecessor with another thrilling adventure, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas’s continuation of the beloved franchise meets the fans’ expectations, creates new fans in the process, and continues to bring jubilation to generations of cinema lovers with another heavyweight addition to the category of escapist entertainment.

Fun Fact: Sharon Stone auditioned for Willie.