INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE: 4K UHD re-issue (Paramount, 1989) Paramount Home Video

Immediately following the release of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), Paramount once more approached director, Steven Spielberg with a pitch for another sequel. Initially, co-creator, George Lucas wanted the movie’s plot to be a variation on the ‘haunted castle’ or 'dark old house' motif, culminating in a search for the Holy Grail. But this concept held no particularly interest for Spielberg. Instead, the director pitched an idea to Lucas for a father/son, buddy/buddy actioner that would eventually incorporate Lucas’ Holy Grail concept as its grand finale. 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 the first two 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 slightly bumbling patriarch into this formula has not only splits the point of interest and focus of the film (as Connery’s alter-ego/he-man, James Bond needs no introduction), but Connery’s constant referencing of our hero as ‘junior’ utterly diffused Indy’s credibility as both a stud and adventure-seeking leading man. Herein, Indiana Jones becomes the comedy sidekick to Connery’s sage, dealing with repressed father-figure issues. Adding insult to injury, both men have slept with this movie’s leading lady - Dr. Elsa Schneider (Alison Doody) who turns out to be the villainess of the piece. The other great sin Jeffrey Boam’s screenplay commits is the absence of a winsome heroine as Schneider’s counterpoint. Besides, Doody is not entirely up to playing 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 dramatic arc to the story.

The pre-title sequence is a showcase for the late River Phoenix as a young Indiana Jones – a Boy Scout no less - acquiring both his guts and fear of reptiles (that we have 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 develops between father and son, moving us into the present day.  Indiana (now, once more played by Harrison 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.

One of the most absurd aspects in Boam’s screenplay is that it is reaching much too hard for its laughs. Characters like Sallah and Brody that seemed natural, or at least, intelligent and genuine in Raiders, have been reduced to 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, dressed as a Nazi brown shirt, and, carrying the stolen map book to direct him to the final resting place of Christ’s chalice, nearly intercepted by a bad knock-off of Adolph Hitler who, mistakenly autographs it instead, is bad camp at the expense of suspending our disbelief. While Last Crusade performed the most admirable of all three original movies at the box office, its $475.8 million intake making it the most successful release of 1989, Paramount was not all that eager to revisit Indy’s creative well again. Presumably, neither were Spielberg or Harrison Ford, who each believed everything that needed to be said about Indiana Jones and his adventures had already been done. As the standard of this epoch in the picture-making biz was to tie up movie franchises into trilogies, and Ford’s own advancing years (he was 47 in 1989) inferred such physical vigor necessary for this franchise’s success in particular would soon be beyond his athletic reach, Last Crusade appeared to mark an end to the great Dr. Jones.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade looks and sounds as good as you would expect in 4K. Paramount as done the heavy lifting on all these UHD transfers. The results speak for themselves. Color fidelity is excellent, bordering on exquisite. Grain management is a bit curious here. At times, it is almost invisible, while at others, rather heavy and obvious. Never, however, does it appear to have been artificially silenced or boosted.  The image is overall sharp, filmic and laden with exceptional tonality and textures. Dolby Vision has really given this image a boost. Color saturation is monumentally satisfying. The aforementioned blue-screen work still looks tragically fake. But it always did. The full-scale stuff fairs much better and will surely satisfy. There are no age-related artifacts. Dolby Atmos elevates our listening appreciation of the original soundtrack to a whole new level. John Williams’ score soars. Action sequences explode with precise clarity. Dialogue is front-centered but presented with solid clarity. As with the other movies, there are NO extras features here – save some trailers. Bottom line: if you already own Paramount’s deluxe 5-disc 4K box set, this is a pointless repurchase.

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

3

VIDEO/AUDIO

5++

EXTRAS

0