INDIANA JONES: 4-film collection 4K UHD Blu-ray (Paramount, 1981-2008) Paramount Home Video

The George Lucas brand is primarily known for two enduring film franchises; Star Wars (1977-present) and Indiana Jones (1981-2008…although a 5^th installment is rumored to be in production for 2022). In more recent times, the former has suffered greatly at the hands of its creator, with Lucas’ inability to keep his digital play tools to himself resulting in multiple ‘special editions’ to keep the original trilogy ‘relevant’ by contemporary standards, with revisions and insertions of scenes and characters, completely to have marred the impact and lasting appeal of those legendary original three classics. Mercifully, the latter franchise has remained virtually untouched by such idiotic meddling, allowing audiences to judge for themselves the purity of the original efforts poured into their creation. While the first film in the IJ franchise – 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark – remains undeniably, its best, the retrospective demonization of 1984’s Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom is largely unwarranted, while the third and fourth installments - part 3’s ironically titled, Indiana Jones and the ‘Last’ Crusade (1989), and, much delayed, but eventually released Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) are but wan ghost flowers, riding the coattails of that elusive spark of creative genius that so dominated the first two efforts.

Herein, it is definitely worth a moment’s pause to reassess the financial climate in Hollywood circa 1981, the industry still reeling from Michael Cimino’s $40 million box office thud, Heaven’s Gate, which placed the once venerable United Artists on the chopping block, rife for bankruptcy and a not-so-hostile corporate takeover.  By 1981, virtually all of these seemingly indestructible titans of the American film industry had teetered on the brink of extinction at least once. Warner Bros. was purchased outright by corporate leviathan, Kinney in 1969. MGM officially closed its doors as a production house, following its acquisition in the early 70’s by Vegas financier, Kirk Kerkorian, who released an obscene public statement to his investors, about the one-time greatest studio in all the world now his personal garage sale, ‘hotel company’ and a relatively insignificant distributor of movies, the rights to which it would continue acquiring like a handful of paperclips elsewhere. Thanks to its diversification into television and theme parks, Universal kept its corporate balance sheet from sinking too far into the red, while 2oth Century-Fox, began to look toward its own amalgamation with Rupert Murdoch to shore up its sagging bottom line. In the late 70’s, UA had made the utterly disastrous miscalculation of hiring a corporate bean counter from TransAmerica to headline its studio, making sense of the movie biz only by number-crunching spreadsheets. Nowhere, however, was the turnaround towards good fortune more astonishingly felt than at Paramount. After a fallow period in the mid-60’s effectively threatened to shutter its doors for good, the studio was acquired by mega-oil and gas giant, Gulf + Western who reluctantly appointed actor come mogul, Robert Evans as its CEO. Under Evans’ guidance, Paramount did a complete about-face from dead last to A-list production house with its pulse firmly on what the public wanted to see. It began courting bankable stars and directors, producing home-grown product of high caliber quality, making it the envy of all the rest.

A handful of movies released alongside Raiders of the Lost Ark, from Paramount and elsewhere, bear brief mention, if only to comparatively asset the competition. There was the curiously antiseptic melodrama, Absence of Malice, made by Sydney Pollack for Columbia (on the brink of its own renaissance), Uni’s darkly purposed horror classic, An American Werewolf in London, WB’s adult comedy, Arthur, about a perpetually inebriated millionaire, UA’s Blow Out, an edgy thriller from Brian De Palma, the indie-made (but distributed thru Warner Bros.) Chariots of Fire – to take home the lion’s share of Oscars, Condorman, and, The Devil and Max Devlin, the Walt Disney company’s two bizarre attempts to enter the adult live-action market, director, Sam Raimi’s independently made, shot on a shoestring, and, utterly bone-chilling horror classic, The Evil Dead and Paramount’s sincerely blundered thriller, The Fan – sporting a high-quality cast to include Lauren Bacall, James Gardner and Maureen Stapleton, but quickly to devolve into a sort of botched gumbo of missed opportunities. UA bounced back with another installment in the perennially popular James Bond franchise, For Your Eyes Only, Universal made the sick little slasher, The Funhouse with Tobe Hooper, and the fundamentally flawed Ghost Story, to headline a bevy of one-time greats - Fred Astaire, Douglas Fairbanks Jr., Melvyn Douglas and John Houseman.

Horror was big, as Rick Rosenthal’s incredibly faithful sequel, Halloween II, managed largely to rekindle the chills of the John Carpenter original. Uni and Sylvester Stallone teamed for a sizable hit with the terrorist-themed, Nighthawks, Hollywood legend, Henry Fonda marked an end to his career and life on a high note: the heartfelt, On Golden Pond, opposite another titan of the old guard, Katharine Hepburn, with whom, even more incredibly, he had never worked with before, while Steve Martin attempted to do a Fred and Ginger-stylized musical, the costly but poorly received Pennies from Heaven, co-starring Bernadette Peters and Christopher Walken. Warren Beatty made an epic – Reds, while George Cukor, dusted off an old Bette Davis/Miriam Hopkins’ melodrama, Old Acquaintance, for co-stars, Jacqueline Bisset and Candice Bergen – the almost as good, Rich and Famous. Cinema’s goodie-two-shoes, Julie Andrews bared her breasts for hubby, Blake Edwards’ silly little sex-farce S.O.B., and Bo Derek showed her more than perky rack, though not much else, clinging to a rippling mass known as co-star, Miles O’Keeffe in the ill-fated reboot of Tarzan the Ape Man.

So, to suggest there was nothing quite like Raiders of the Lost Ark on Hollywood’s radar in 1981 is an understatement. Spielberg’s desire to revive and elevate the classic B-grade serialized action/adventure yarn, to have dazzled his young boy’s imagination and fill up his leisure during the late 50’s, was, ironically, what the movies had been waiting for all along.  Initially turned down by virtually every major studio in Hollywood, the film that introduced audiences to the uber-rugged archaeologist/fortune hunter, Indiana Jones, Raiders of the Lost Ark was the quintessential homage to B-serials, adding considerable cache to Spielberg’s already impressive canon of film achievements. In the early start of his career, Spielberg possessed an uncanny knack for telling stories to ignite our childhood excitement, regardless of one’s actual age – the spirit of adventure tapped to its extreme and able to catapult his audience into those wondrous, forgotten recesses of childhood fantasy, if, from a very exhilarating and adult perspective. Initially Raiders was begun by George Lucas, even before he had finished penning the script to Star Wars (1977). Alas, the idea for a fantasy/adventure set during WWII languished in Lucas' fertile fancy until he took a much-needed vacation to Hawaii. Meanwhile Spielberg had purchased the rights to an unrelated screenplay by Philip Kaufman. Although this project would never reach fruition, upon being asked by Lucas to direct Raiders, Spielberg remembered how much he appreciated Kaufman’s prose and hired him to outline the story concept for this film. In the final phase of its pre-production, writer, Lawrence Kasdan was brought in to polish off the dialogue.

The name Indiana actually belongs to Lucas’ dog – a Malamute that also served as Lucas’ inspiration for Chewbacca in Star Wars. Although Spielberg concurred with Lucas that Indiana was a fine first name, Lucas’ choice of ‘Smith’ left Spielberg cold and was eventually changed to ‘Jones’. Tom Selleck was Spielberg’s first choice to play the lead after Lucas resisted casting Harrison Ford yet again. Ford had previously appeared for Lucas in American Graffiti (1973) and then, even better, as the hotshot flyer, Han Solo in Star Wars. Mercifully, Selleck’s CBS iron-clad commitments to TV’s Magnum P.I. precluded his involvement. So, Lucas rather begrudgingly fell back on Ford as his second choice. With skyrocketing costs at home, England’s Elstree Studios would serve as the primary production house for interior shooting, with cast and crew moving to Hawaii, and later, Tunisia for exteriors. Only two years before, Elstree had been the scene of a devastating fire to ravage its production facilities and backlot during the shooting of Stanley Kubrick’s horror classic, The Shining (1980). Hence, in a planned sequence for Raiders, where Marion Ravenwood’s (Karen Allen) bar is burned to the ground, Spielberg made extensive personal assurances to the executives that his policy would be ‘safety first’. Flame retardant was liberally sprayed everywhere with firemen standing by, extinguishers drawn, to ensure no such disaster occurred on his set. In Tunisia, whole portions of the city had their television antennas removed so Spielberg could lens wider shots seen from Sallah’s (John Rhys-Davies) rooftop apartment. Today, the same feat would have been accomplished by a little digital scrubbing in a computer software program in post-production. Spielberg would later admit the Tunisian shoot was among the most challenging of his entire career – buffeted by stifling heat and a virulent bout of food poisoning that leveled everyone except Spielberg who had had the good sense to import all his food from England.

We begin our adventure deep in the Mayan jungles where Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) has just recovered an ancient golden idol from a trap-infested temple. However, his harrowing conquest is diffused when rival archaeologist, Rene Belloq (Paul Freeman) arrives to claim the prize for his own, having bribed the natives with trinkets to do his bidding. Barely escaping with his life, Indy returns to Oxford University. There, he is approached by a pair of FBI agents who express interest in his knowledge of the Ark of the Covenant, the final resting place for the tablets Moses brought down from Mount Sinai. Whoever possesses the ark commands an army that cannot be defeated. Hence, Adolph Hitler’s intense fascination to possess it. Indy agrees to go in search of the ark. His first stop is a remote snowbound Tibetan village, home to his old friend, retired archaeologist, Abner Ravenwood. Unfortunately, Abner has since died leaving Indy to grapple with his daughter and embittered ex-lover, Marion, now the sole heir of Abner’s meager estate. Indy’s primary interest is in an ancient medallion with curious markings. He tries to get Marion to give him this artifact. But she remains bitter over their failed love affair and refuses him. She is next approached by Nazi Maj. Arnold Toht (Ronald Lacey) who is not willing to take 'no' for an answer. Thankfully for Marion, Indy hasn't gone very far. In the resulting brawl, Marion’s inn is burned to the ground and she angrily declares that Indy has just acquired a new partner on his expedition. Toht attempts to retrieve the medallion from the flames, but it burns an imprint in the palm of his hand and he is forced to flee.

Indy and Marion travel to Cairo where Indy’s old arch nemesis, Belloq has already begun excavating with information gleaned from the burned imprint on Toht's hand. But Indy has managed to recover the medallion. It is double-sided. The inscription on its backside provides Indy with the precise location of the map room that will divulge secrets to the Well of Souls. Belloq learns of Indy’s alternate excavation site and entombs him and Marion in the Well’s snake-infested burial chamber after stealing the ark for his own. After some perilous moments of panic, Indy and Marion break out of the tomb and join Sallah on a perilous quest to recover the ark.  Sallah arranges passage for Indy and Marion aboard smuggler, Katanga's (George Harris) rusty pirate ship. But the Nazis have tailed them across the sea in a U-boat and take the ark and Marion hostage to a remote island where Belloq is determined to unleash its power. Aware that to open the ark means death to all who look upon it, Indy instructs Marion to shut her eyes. Belloq, Toht and the Nazis are consumed in an unearthly firestorm of demons and lightening, a searing white shaft of ominous light parting the clouds before the ark seals itself shut. In Washington, Indy tries to get the FBI to agree to let him study the ark. He is told by one of its bureaucrats (Bill Reimbold) the FBI has their top men working on it. As Indy storms out of their offices, accompanied by a sympathetic Marion, we cut away to a vast warehouse in the National Archives. The ark, sealed in an unmarked crate, is pushed on a dolly by a lonely attendant into an unidentified stack, presumably doomed to become just another forgotten relic expunged from the annals of history.

Raiders of the Lost Ark is undeniably a grand entertainment, arguably, the best action/adventure yarn of its kind. Spielberg, whose forte is fantasy, weaves a rich tapestry of the macabre, combining the sacred with the profane to achieve a sort of pseudo-'religious experience', albeit with Nazis, serpents and a little sex feathered in for good measure. On the heels of its heady success, audience anticipation for another high-octane adventure convinced Paramount to spend even more lavishly on its sequel, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984). That it emerged as a much darker, more sinister excursion into the occult and black magic of the Kali was something unexpected, and, in hindsight, rather unsettling. Even today, many critics rate Temple of Doom as inferior to its predecessor. It hasn't exactly helped the picture’s reputation Spielberg publicly denounces it as his least favorite in the franchise. To be accurate, as well as fair, Raiders of the Lost Ark is undeniably the superior of the two, in narrative stealth, screen economy and its ability to generate thrills akin to a roller coaster ride. Yet, might not Temple of Doom be assessed on its own terms, as an intense antidote to the exhilarating ‘dark ride’? It careens through some very spooky territory, leaving the palms, sweaty and the heart, palpitating.  To alleviate some chronic, and, excruciating back pain, star, Harrison Ford underwent surgery just prior to the shoot, and then, plunged himself into a rigorous exercise program to buff up for the role, requiring him to remain shirtless for large portions of the action.

As scripted by Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, Temple of Doom is a much more baleful affair, a sort of Indiana Jones meets Blade Runner (1980) with stolen bits of business borrowed from unused ideas Lucas had endeavored to squeeze into Raiders. Lucas and Spielberg have generally discounted the story by suggesting its best parts were all leftovers from Raiders.  However, this undercuts the overall arch of excitement that Temple of Doom effortlessly generates. Comparisons between the Huyak/Katz’s screenplay and George Steven’s Gunga Din (1939) and Frank Capra’s Lost Horizon (1936) are inevitable. Indeed, Indy’s escape from Club Obi Wan, pursued by a ruthless Asian mafia chieftain and his henchmen, brings to mind the evacuation of Baskul from Capra’s classic, while the Thugee cult that dominates the latter half of the picture has its obvious roots in Steven’s movie. To this mix, Spielberg affords Indy a pint-sized sidekick, the orphan, Short Round (memorably realized by Jonathan Ke Quan) and an American nightclub singer, Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw…the future Mrs. Steven Spielberg). Yet, what emerges from Spielberg’s adventuresome milieu is a rollicking departure from the first movie, its timeline to precede the events of the first picture, in an action-packed escapist nightmare with some stunningly handsome matte work and completely convincing miniatures.

On this outing, Indy escapes certain death in Hong Kong after a murderous mafia chieftain, Lao Che (Roy Chiao) reneges on their deal and attempts to poison him. Indy, along with his devoted sidekick, Short Round and whiny chanteuse, Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw) steal away into the night and, after a harrowing chase through the narrow streets, board a plane, presumably bound for home.  One problem: the airline is owned by Lao Che. The pilots bail in mid-air, leaving Indy, Willie and Shorty to crash land in India where they soon discover an ancient evil cult has since been revived and presently grown all powerful once more. Sacred stones from a nearby village, and the inhabitant’s children have also been stolen in the night. Indy, Willie and Shorty are taken to the Maharaja's (Raj Singh) palace in Pankok where they are invited to feast on a most grotesque buffet of bugs, snakes and monkey brains. Afterward, Indy questions the Maharaja about the Thugee, but is assured it is a thing of the past. However, later in his room a Thugee guard attempts to strangle Indy. Making short shrift of the guard, Indy charges into Willie's suite and discovers a secret passage that leads to underground caverns beneath the palace.

There Indy, Willie and Shorty witness a human sacrifice at the hands of high priest, Mola Ram (Amrish Puri).  The unsuspecting trio is then taken prisoner by Mola Ram's minions and Indy is made to drink the blood of Kali. This sends him into 'the black sleep'. Shorty is exiled to the slave camps and Willie is slated to become the next human sacrifice. Mercifully, at the last possible moment, Shorty revives Indy from his hypnotic trance and together they free Willie from her certain fate. The trio next boards a mine car, narrowly escaping a flash flood, before struggling to cross a flimsy suspension bridge, pursued by Mola Ram and his guards. The bridge breaks apart over croc-infested waters, leaving Indy and Mola Ram to struggle in a fight to the death. Indy destroys Mola Ram and, together with Shorty and Willie, returns to the village with the sacred stones where prosperity has preceded their arrival.

The general consensus in 1984 was Temple of Doom was no Raiders of the Lost Ark. This, however, did not stop Temple of Doom from performing enviably at the box office. Viewed today, Kate Capshaw gets a bad rap for her ear-piercing screeches - a running gag throughout the film. True enough, Willie Scott is no Marion Ravenwood. But personally, I’ve never found Capshaw’s performance as the self-absorbed diva anything but totally amusing comedy relief. And Capshaw proved she had more on the ball than just a figure of fun. For Temple of Doom’s magnificent opener, the actress had to learn the lyrics to Cole Porter’s immortal ‘Anything Goes’ in Mandarin. Although Capshaw was scheduled to tap as well as sing, costume designer, Anthony Powell’s exquisite, but undeniably form-fitting red and gold-sequined gown restricted her movements to all but a sexy slink. Reportedly, this sequence was filmed near the end of the production. Alas, only then was it discovered the elephant that Willie Scott rides to Pankok had eaten through some of the beads on the back of the dress during the location shoot in Sri Lanka. Promotional junkets for Temple of Doom declared, “If adventure has a name, it must be Indiana Jones.” While the public demanded another rollicking adventure yarn, what came next was a more evenly paced spook show into the haunted recesses of the human mind. And, as time passes, Temple of Doom may very well be considered one of the most extraordinary and lavishly appointed action/adventure movies of all time - solidly crafted and expertly played with breathtaking stunt work and some truly phenomenal cinematography by Douglas Slocombe.

Immediately following its release, Paramount once more approached Spielberg with a pitch for yet another sequel. And while the resultant movie has long-since been considered the director’s favorite, I have never entirely warmed to Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade (1989). Part of the appeal of Indy’s character in these movies was Harrison Ford’s guy’s guy – someone every man in the audience wanted to be and every woman wanted to be with.  Introducing Sean Connery’s sage and slightly bumbling patriarch into this formula not only split the point of interest and focus of the film, but Connery’s constant referencing of our hero as ‘junior’ utterly diffused Indy’s credibility as a leading man. Herein, Indiana Jones becomes the comedy sidekick with repressed father-figure issues; both men, having slept with the same woman, Dr. Elsa Schneider (Alison Doody). The other great sin Jeffrey Boam’s screenplay commits is the absence of a winsome heroine. Doody is the femme fatale. In its preliminary stages, Spielberg and Lucas could not agree on a central narrative. Boam’s patchwork is thus a compromise and looks it, suffering from too many creative ideas mashed together without ever developing an overall arch to the story. Lucas initially wanted the plot to be a variation on the ‘haunted castle’ or 'dark old house' motif, culminating in a search for the Holy Grail. Neither concept particularly interested Spielberg. Instead, the director pitched an idea to Lucas of a father and son – buddy/buddy - actioner that would eventually incorporate Lucas’ Holy Grail concept.

The pre-title sequence is a showcase for the late River Phoenix as the young Indiana Jones – a Boy Scout no less - acquiring both his guts and fear of reptiles (that we’ve already witnessed in the previous two adventures), this time, when confronted by some ruthless fortune hunters. In hindsight, this pre-credit send-up, having absolutely nothing to do with the central plot, plays like a James-Bondian opener, or, more directly, a precursor to Spielberg’s short-lived launch of television’s Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992-93). From here we are introduced to Indy’s father, Professor Henry Jones (Sean Connery) who chides his son on his spur-of-the-moment ill planning. A rift is created between father and son, moving us into the present day.  Indiana (now, once more played by Ford) joins forces with Dr. Elsa Schneider, a fellow archeologist who has also had an affair with his dad and is actually working for the Nazis, and more directly, American fortune hunter, Walter Donovan (Julian Glover doing an utterly unconvincing American accent). Indy and Elsa’s search for the chalice Christ drank from during the last supper leads first to Italy, then Berlin, and finally, Petra. In the interim, Indy reunites with his father. Old emotional scars are exposed. Eventually, Indy learns the truth about Elsa and his father’s affair with her. Donovan pursues Indy and Henry, along with Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliot, inexplicably rewritten here as an obtuse figure of fun) and Sallah (John Rhys-Davies) to Jordan where Indy is forced at gunpoint to recover the chalice in order to save Henry’s life.

Boam’s screenplay is trying too hard for its laughs. Characters like Sallah and Brody, that seemed natural, or at least, intelligent and genuine in Raiders, have been transformed into garish cartoon parodies of themselves.  Several glaring examples of matte and blue screen make the bi-plane getaway sequence aboard a Zeppelin obvious and disengaging. The Berlin book-burning sequence, where Indy, carrying the stolen map book to direct him to the final resting place of Christ’s chalice, but instead, comes face to face with a bad knock-off of Adolph Hitler who, mistaking it as an autograph book, signs the blank insert before handing it back to him, devolves into pure camp at the expense of suspending our disbelief. While Last Crusade performed admirable at the box office, Paramount was not all that eager to revisit the creative well yet again – and, presumably, neither were Spielberg or Ford, who each believed everything that needed to be said about this character and his adventures had already been done. As the standard of the age was to tie up movie franchises in trilogies, Last Crusade appeared to mark an end to Indiana Jones. Alas, the obituary was short-lived, or rather, reinvented as a moratorium not to be taken seriously with the announcement that after an absence of 19 years, Harrison Ford would be returning to the fedora and whip with Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008).

In retrospect, the picture is a woefully misguided attempt to reboot and reinvigorate the franchise with Ford, now a weather-beaten and slightly paunchy 66, well past his prime to play the exotic and uber-masculine fortune hunter. Scripted by David Koepp, Crystal Skull struggles to find its place, emerging as more of an addendum to, than a continuation of, the franchise. The absence between Last Crusade and Crystal Skull was mutually agreed upon by Spielberg, Lucas and Ford at the time, each desiring to pursue a more diverse palette of projects. Regrettably, the passage of time proved a grave disadvantage as Ford was forced into the part of the sage, handing off the headier action/adventure stuff to his illegitimate son, Henry ‘Mutt’ Williams (played with forgettable machismo by Shia LaBeouf). The screenplay reunited Indy with his first love, Marion Ravenwood (an aged Karen Allen) but advanced the narrative timeline to 1957, necessitating a change of villain. Gone are the Nazis, replaced by a virulent Cold War enemy, Col. Dr. Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett) who wastes no time kidnapping Indy and his friend, Mac George Michale (Ray Winstone) whom she then forces to search for alien remains kept secret in a secluded warehouse somewhere in Nevada.

Mac double-crosses Indy, who escapes and takes refuge inside a lead-lined fridge to avert radiation exposure from a nuclear explosion on a bomb test site. Later, Indy is prompted by Mutt to pursue the legend of the crystal skull in Peru after the disappearance of Professor Oxley (John Hurt). As the legend goes, anyone returning the skull to the mythic city of Akator will wield dominance over its alien powers. Mutt and Indy learn Oxley was placed in a mental hospital, after having suffered a complete mental breakdown from handling the skull, but was then kidnapped by the Soviets. Jones and Mutt are ambushed and thrown into a camp with Oxley and Marion. After several narrow escapes, the troop arrive with Spalko at an ancient temple deep in the jungle. The aliens use advanced mind control over their hapless human counterparts. Demanding to know everything, the aliens release Oxley from their trance and transfer the bulk of their knowledge into Spalko’s mind.  She is now their prisoner. They also activate an otherworldly portal into another dimension, into which Spalko and the rest of the Soviets are sucked. Indy, Marion and Mutt escape and in the final moments decide to finally marry.

Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is so transparently geared towards a transference of the franchise from Ford to LeBeouf it hurts. After all, these movies are supposed to be about Indiana Jones – not his son. And LeBeouf, try as he might, is a doughy and dour action star, more cocky than clever and far less appealing when whole portions of the movie are merely handed over to him to do the heavy lifting.  The plot is a mess, made weighty, yet meaningless by hokey vignettes slathered in a woeful amount of dubiously fake-looking CGI. One of the sheer joys of the original trilogy was its clever staging of live action, particularly its animal wrangling sequences. In Raiders we had snakes – real ones, cleverly set behind transparent glass walls to spare the actors any dangerous interaction. In Temple of Doom there was a grotesque assortment of bugs to make the skin crawl - literally. Last Crusade has a justly celebrated sequence featuring live rats. In an attempt to outdo them all, Crystal Skull gives us an attack of computer-generated red ants. Alas, it doesn’t work. Borrowing on the same CGI used to create man-eating scarabs in The Mummy (1999), the red ant attack here just looks totally fake, and worse, like a blasé rip-off with zero shock value to be derived as the ants devour anyone unfortunate enough to get in their way. There are other missteps along the way. Forget the aforementioned escape from nuclear annihilation by hiding in a fridge. At one point, Indy swings on vines through the jungle like Tarzan. Blanchett, a reputable actress otherwise, herein cannot produce a credible Russian accent to save her life. Shia LeBeouf’s Mutt is a gangly wannabe fortune hunter who’s too curt, yet too precious to be Indy’s offspring. In the end, the pieces don’t fit and the story simply lumbers along to its inevitable conclusion. Despite its financial success – predicated more on fan following generated by the first three movies – Crystal Skull remains the most unworthy successor to the original movie. 

Paramount Home Video unleashes Indiana Jones: The Complete Adventures in 4K and the results are impressive. The extensive clean-up Paramount did to ready the Indy movies for Blu-ray back in 2012 was not without consternation and debate.  Actually, the Blu’s had major issues, particularly Raiders which leaned to a very cool, slightly teal bias that in no way replicated the original theatrical experience. I am happy to report, not only have all 4 movies been given an extensive remastering in native UHD 4K with HDR, but color correction has been applied to all. The teal bias on Raiders is gone and the movie now accurately resembles what I remember seeing at the movies in 1981 – a richer, more refined palette with markedly improved flesh tones, more verdant foliage, and exquisite amounts of fine detail throughout. All of the movies in this set sport such exemplary care. Temple of Doom looks astonishingly crisp throughout, with Paramount having gone back to basics to further conceal the matte crop marks during special effects and integrate the live action stuff with the miniatures. Ditto for the matte work on Last Crusade. This too looks more natural now, even during the biplane sequence.  The least impressive results, ironically, are achieved on Crystal Skull, whose heavy reliance on SFX likely rendered in 2K, if not less, now appear soft and occasionally smeary. I love the way the first 3 movies in the original trilogy have been handled – with the utmost care and attention to detail. Bravo, and well done! Paramount has gone the extra step of introducing 7.1 Atmos mixes for all of these movies. The most impressive is Temple of Doom, creating an enveloping sound mix that truly hugs the sound field on all sides, especially during the climactic mine ride escape. Here, echoes of steal-grinding wheels, and swooshing air flying past the occupants realistically ricochets about the room with frightfully realistic exhilaration. Wow! Bottom line: it’s time to double-dip for Indiana Jones again, though arguably, for the very last time. Indy in 4K is the real/reel deal. Buy today. Treasure forever! Fortune and glory, kid. Fortune and glory!

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

Raiders of the Lost Ark 5

Temple of Doom 4.5

Last Crusade 3.5

Crystal Skull 1

VIDEO/AUDIO

Overall 5

EXTRAS

5