Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark is the first movie of the Indiana Jones franchise. Directed by legendary director Steven Spielberg with the writing done by Lawrence Kasdan with a story from George Lucas. The 1981 production was produced by Lucasfilm and distributed by Paramount Pictures. The main protagonist is portrayed by Harrison Ford, who stars alongside the likes of Karen Allen, Paul Freeman, John Rhys-Davies, Denholm Elliott. The movie scores excellent both on IMDb and Metacritic, receiving 8.4/10 and 85 scores respectively.
The Story
Raiders of the Lost Ark has become one of the many all-time classics created by the mastermind Steven Spielberg. The story created was original and gave us one of a few great true adventure movies. It captures the essence of an adventure, keeping the viewer on the edge of his seat for almost the whole movie. The mix of reality and fantasy this movie creates is also well-thought-out. Indiana is always serious and doesn’t believe in any fairy tales but in the end, the fairy tales become the truth.
The way Spielberg made talking about archaeology fun during the scene where Indiana first heard about the Ark shows how great this movie is. If you think about it, it is a rather dull subject. However, Harrison Ford’s performance makes the viewer just as interested in the Ark as Doctor Jones. This engagement is then kept throughout the remainder of the film by constantly creating tense situations where we made to believe our protagonist has found himself in an impossible position. Of course, he escapes every one of those situations but I believe they are extremely well done.
I also like how they also put in some comedy. The scene where Indiana shoots the man wielding a sword made me laugh out loud as well as Toht turning nunchucks into a clothes hanger. Alongside these funny moments, Spielberg also provides us with plenty of horrifying sights, killing people in some gruesome ways.
The Characters
Our main protagonist Indy is such a cool guy. He is what every little boy would want to grow into. He is smart, fit and handsome. I like how they made the latter explicitly clear with the woman in his classroom. He gets into some hard positions but he always manages the escape them and comes out on top.
The movie is really a one-star show though, with not anyone character coming close to his screentime. Marion is a nice addition to the story but it seems she is more of a burden than a help for Indy. I did like the nemesis connection with Belloq and how they had one over the other all time. And a shout-out to my friend Sallah, played by John Rhys-Davies who portrays a certain dwarf in my favourite movie of all time.
The Production
As this is a 1981 production you can’t expect the same production levels as a modern-day movie. But for its time, I think the movie did a great job. The opening setpiece, where Indiana needs to escape the temple quickly is extremely well-made and fun to watch. If you excuse the visual effects, as you should, I would conclude that the movie’s action setpieces weren’t the best. Fighting scenes were a bit too unrealistic, which caused them to look silly rather than cool.