Archaeology 101?-Harrison Ford’s Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade (1989)-A Film Review 

DVD Review

By Movie Critic Sam Lowell

Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade, starring Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Alison Doody, directed by Steven Spielberg, 1989    

Indiana Jones, the well-known fictional archeologist-warrior, and central character of the film under review, Indiana Jones: The Last Crusade, whose was the scourge of all the ruins rip-off artists of the 1930s whether they were politically-driven Nazis or just run of the mill bandits and grave-robbers apparently made it hard for professional archeologists who came of age after World War II. That is my take on the matter in any case after viewing the film and remembering the late Professor Hobart Stanley whom I took a course in archeology with when I was a college student interested in ancient Greece and Rome. The good professor seemed if I recall to have been hard-pressed to get his notes untangled much less face down the assorted vermin whose antics plague those who seek knowledge from the past. So everybody should take advantage of the now four-film Indiana Jones series to see what it was like if only on the big screen when archeologists dug for real. (That four film series may be getting an addition if a reviewer of a biography I read about the director of this film, Steven Spielberg, is correct.         

Here is how archeology played out in its heroic age. Through a series of events Indiana (I don’t have to say that the role was played by Harrison Ford do I?) finds out that his professor father Henry, played by Sean Connery (which is assume I do have to mention since he is more closely associated with the James Bond series in his heyday) had gone missing. Missing out in the boondocks looking for his lifetime quest of finding the legendary Holy Grail. This Holy Grail search which has been the downfall of many since the Crusades maybe before is worth the effort since one of its attributes is to provide the person in control of the object eternal life (one could not really say that one “owed” such an object so control is what we have, control as long as one can keep the damn thing). So Indiana is a man on a mission to find his errant father. Helping him along the way is a drop-dead beautiful associate of the Professor Henry, Elsa, played by Alison Doody. So they are off to Venice where all hell breaks loose. Naturally that Holy Grail has stirred men and women to crazy actions. And to have defenders as well.                 

Let’s concentrate on the people who go crazy with the idea of grabbing the Holy Grail. If you are talking about 1930s Europe then you have to deal with the Nazis who as who would like to extend that Third Reich they had promised would last one thousand years out indefinitely, at least one can assume old Hitler would have given his eyeteeth for possession of such an object. With a lot of little off-hand adventures, a few fights and a couple of stray gun shots Indiana finds his distance father but winds up being held by the fast-pursuing Nazis. Why? Well, and this says something about craziness of another type it turned out that drop-dead Elsa was working hand-in-glove with the Nazis and another man for her own purposes. Oops, Indy. Not to worry though between them Indy and Pops clear every hurdle to get to the Grail which turns out to only be effective in the caverns where they find it (guarded by an ancient Crusader which proves how worthwhile the struggle to find the Grail was for all parties. As for Elsa she was son crazed by the notion of eternal life she tried to grab the chalice and fell to her death. Fitting. Indy and Pops? Well they rode off into the sunset ending another adventure. Yeah, those were the days to be an archeologist. A couple of hours of full-fisted adventure no question.