Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
“Raiders of the Lost Ark” is not just the best Indiana Jones film, it’s also one of the best films of all-time. But if you were to ask me my favorite watch of the franchise, it’s “Last Crusade.” In a span of eight years, George Lucas, Steven Spielberg and Harrison Ford told a complete story of an adventurer archeologist who went from thinking it was all about “fortune and glory” to understanding the spiritual nature of the discovery, and how- sometimes- discovering a historical artifact does not mean it’s intended to be seen by the masses. Even more so than any other film in the series besides “Dial of Destiny,” that idea is made clear.
The first thing that inevitably is brought up regarding “Last Crusade” is the opening adventure, which shows a young Indy (played by River Phoenix) on a Boy Scouts trip, and how he comes across his first artifact, which he’s chased for by the people uncovering it. This sequence is seen as ground zero for a lot of “origin stories” we’ve gotten in the past few years like “Solo,” but given what was next was “The Indiana Jones Chronicles” TV series, you can see the filmmakers laying down the groundwork for Phoenix to take over the hat as a Young Indy that might have happened had he not passed away in 1993. This is one of those moments where- whenever I watch it- I just miss River Phoenix, and the boundless potential we were robbed of. He was my generation’s Heath Ledger, and I lament what we’ve missed from him in the decades since his passing. As for the sequence itself, yes, it’s silly that so much of what we had come to know of Indy is established in this one adventure, but the energy of Spielberg’s direction, Phoenix’s performance and John Williams’s score makes this a sequence I’ll forever enjoy.
Even now, I don’t really associate Sean Connery with James Bond- I didn’t grow up with those movies, and still have a lot of his 007 movies to watch. But I understood part of the significance of having James Bond be Indiana Jones’s father being a big deal- it wasn’t until later that I knew that Spielberg and Lucas gave us “Raiders” after Spielberg was rebuffed from directing a Bond film. Now that Spielberg has given us his autobiographical film, “The Fabelmans,” it makes the dynamic between Indy and his father in this more fascinating. (And admittedly, a bit weirder since we get a blonde-haired Nazi (Alison Dooley) as the woman they both bed in this film.) But while the screenplay by Jeffrey Boam is a terrifically efficient one in the tradition of the films that came before it in this series, it all comes down to the dynamic between Ford and Connery in this film. Boam also wrote a couple of the “Lethal Weapon” films around this time, and he brings that experience with buddy comedy with him in the scenes where the two are bouncing off of one another. I think my personal favorite is when they are on the zeppelin, and Indiana is trying to have a conversation with his father. It brings me back to when I was an adult, and trying to have conversations with my own father; our lives had gone on different paths, and trying to find a way into conversation was difficult. This film plays that dynamic beautifully.
The adventure for the Holy Grail honestly makes sense in how it is the artifact to bring father- who is more about research and losing himself in lore- and son- who seems to always find himself in the middle of an adventure- together. The set pieces- be it the opening or the exploration in Venice or trying to escape from the Germans when Indy finds his father alive or when they are in the desert on the last leg of the crusade for the grail- are all fun and as expertly crafted as you’d expect from Spielberg. If the Nazis returning as the villains feels like a retread, I don’t think it is- in “Raiders,” the Nazis hope to unleash the power of the ark (which can be read as a nuclear bomb) to end the war; in searching for the grail, Hitler is hoping to truly create that 1000-year dynasty. (And I like how “Dial of Destiny” finds its own way back to the Nazis with a different perspective on winning the war.) The villains might be the same on the surface, but their objectives are different each time, and it’s a credit to the writers each time out that they were able to accomplish that.
I’ll close with a movie memory close to my heart. Everything about this film- including Denholm Elliott and John Rhys-Davies returning as Marcus and Sallah, respectively; Julian Glover as Donovan and Michael Byrne as Vogel; Indiana having to face the booby traps to get to the grail; the way the Phoenix introduction leads into the present day; the reveal of Indy’s name origin, and that great riding off into the sunset- is wonderful, but I’ll never forget the first time my mom and I watched this in theatres. As Indy and his father are escaping the zeppelin, they find themselves on the beach, with Nazi planes coming after them. Henry Jones Sr. gives his son his bag, and pulls out his umbrella. He shows the birds on the beach off and causes them to run into the plane, which crashes. It’s a moment that shows that father is capable in the field, and all I could do was lean over to my mom and say, “shredded tweet.” We laughed about that for years, and she knew her son was not unlike her. This is a film that brings parents and children together onscreen; that moment brought this child closer with her mother, and I’ll always be grateful for that.
