This is a shockingly bad movie. I can't for the life of me understand why it has earned over a 7.0 rating on IMDb and a club of supporters on the Internet. Nostalgia, perhaps?
I enjoy "Raiders of the Lost Ark," even though I find it to be a little politically incorrect and overrated. "The Temple of Doom," on the other hand, is downright atrocious, mightily racist and even a tad sexist. Apparently the movie was banned in India, and I can understand why, since it depicts Indians as miserably poor, superstitious, knife-waving, monkey-brain-eating lunatics.
The really sad part is that the movie stinks even if you manage to ignore the racism. It's chock full of disgusting moments, like the beetle-eating scene and the part where about a hundred bugs crawl all over Kate Capshaw. It simply pushes the gross envelope too far.
Even the never-ending action scenes are lacking. They're okay, I guess, but there's quite a lot of unconvincing blue screen work, and the big flood segment doesn't work because water doesn't "miniaturize" well. As if the special effects weren't bad enough in themselves, they're complimented by an obnoxious soundtrack, including some unusually bombastic John Williams music and Capshaw's relentless screaming.
You know, she really is a terrible heroine - annoying and painfully unfunny. A beautiful woman, sure, but irksome as all get-out. It's very surprising (in a bad way) to see such a lame female character in Indiana Jones after the series started off with Karen Allen's excellent performance as the (relatively) tough Marion Ravenwood.
Capshaw would be quite bad enough by herself, but compounding the casting problem there's Ke Huy Quan as Short Round, Indy's pointless kid sidekick. Whenever there's a stupid bit of slapstick comedy in the movie, Short Round helpfully cries, "Very funny! Very funny!" Which is code for painfully unfunny, of course.
Weirdly enough, Capshaw (whose character is called Willie, for goodness' sake!) and Short Round are really the only characters - the villains are completely faceless. There's a very bizarre segment when Indy puts on his scholarly glasses and has dinner with some people who I guess might qualify as characters, but the scene just doesn't fit with the rest of the movie, and never for a moment does the dialogue feel "real." So, in the absence of strong characters, the movie just sort of drunkenly reels from fight to fight.
I have one last observation. At one moment, Indy is waiting in his bedroom, expecting Capshaw to come in and have sex with him (he's too proud to go to her bedroom). The strange part about this set-up is that Short Round is in Indy's bedroom. Soooo...I guess Indy is expecting to have sex in front of Short Round? Isn't that a little strange? Well, maybe not; I guess the kid has to learn sometime. But maybe Indy should just go to her room, huh?
Sloppy scenes like that are a sure indication that Spielburg, Lucas and co. were really having an off day when they made this. Terrible, terrible, terrible.
I enjoy "Raiders of the Lost Ark," even though I find it to be a little politically incorrect and overrated. "The Temple of Doom," on the other hand, is downright atrocious, mightily racist and even a tad sexist. Apparently the movie was banned in India, and I can understand why, since it depicts Indians as miserably poor, superstitious, knife-waving, monkey-brain-eating lunatics.
The really sad part is that the movie stinks even if you manage to ignore the racism. It's chock full of disgusting moments, like the beetle-eating scene and the part where about a hundred bugs crawl all over Kate Capshaw. It simply pushes the gross envelope too far.
Even the never-ending action scenes are lacking. They're okay, I guess, but there's quite a lot of unconvincing blue screen work, and the big flood segment doesn't work because water doesn't "miniaturize" well. As if the special effects weren't bad enough in themselves, they're complimented by an obnoxious soundtrack, including some unusually bombastic John Williams music and Capshaw's relentless screaming.
You know, she really is a terrible heroine - annoying and painfully unfunny. A beautiful woman, sure, but irksome as all get-out. It's very surprising (in a bad way) to see such a lame female character in Indiana Jones after the series started off with Karen Allen's excellent performance as the (relatively) tough Marion Ravenwood.
Capshaw would be quite bad enough by herself, but compounding the casting problem there's Ke Huy Quan as Short Round, Indy's pointless kid sidekick. Whenever there's a stupid bit of slapstick comedy in the movie, Short Round helpfully cries, "Very funny! Very funny!" Which is code for painfully unfunny, of course.
Weirdly enough, Capshaw (whose character is called Willie, for goodness' sake!) and Short Round are really the only characters - the villains are completely faceless. There's a very bizarre segment when Indy puts on his scholarly glasses and has dinner with some people who I guess might qualify as characters, but the scene just doesn't fit with the rest of the movie, and never for a moment does the dialogue feel "real." So, in the absence of strong characters, the movie just sort of drunkenly reels from fight to fight.
I have one last observation. At one moment, Indy is waiting in his bedroom, expecting Capshaw to come in and have sex with him (he's too proud to go to her bedroom). The strange part about this set-up is that Short Round is in Indy's bedroom. Soooo...I guess Indy is expecting to have sex in front of Short Round? Isn't that a little strange? Well, maybe not; I guess the kid has to learn sometime. But maybe Indy should just go to her room, huh?
Sloppy scenes like that are a sure indication that Spielburg, Lucas and co. were really having an off day when they made this. Terrible, terrible, terrible.