Movie Review – Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)
The success of Raiders of the Lost Ark spawned a need to bring Indiana Jones back to the silver screen.
Raiders was a smash hit with Indy battling evil Nazis and pursuing the Ark of the Covenant. But something new had to be done for a sequel. Perhaps something exotic and much, much darker.
Enter Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
Originally called Indiana Jones and the Temple of Death, Temple of Doom takes Indiana Jones to the Far East of Shanghai, China and then the exotic lands of India. It’s in India where Dr. Jones comes face to face with a Kali-worshipping thuggee cult fond of brutality, child slavery, and human sacrifices.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom actually takes place a few years prior to the events in Raiders of the Lost Ark. Temple of Doom begins in Shanghai, China, where Indy is meeting with Chinese gangsters and selling the remains of a long lost Chinese emperor.
It’s there in Club Obi Wan where Dr. Henry Jones, Jr., a.k.a. Indiana Jones, (Harrison Ford) meets “Willie” Scott (Kate Capshaw), a performer and dancer at the club. But as Indy and Willie quickly discover, the Chinese gangsters poison and double-cross Indy. A massive fight ensues with Indy battling the Chinese gangsters and fighting for the poison’s antidote, and Willie trying to get her hands on a priceless diamond. Indy and Willie escape through a window and land in a car being driven by Indy’s pint-sized friend, Short Round (Jonathan Ke Quan). The kid drives the trio to the local airport while Indy has a gun battle with gangsters in hot pursuit.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) – (c) Paramount Pictures
Indiana Jones, Willie Scott and Short Round safely arrive at the airfield. They think everything is fine as they board a charter aircraft (complete with livestock), but as we see, the pilots work for Lao Che (Roy Chiao), the Chinese crime boss Indy was fighting back at the night club. The two pilots parachute from the aircraft over southern Asia, leaving the three adventurers alone in the sky and running out of fuel.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) – (c) Paramount Pictures
Willie awakens Indy when she discovers that the pilots are gone. Indy has no flying experience, so he uses an inflatable raft as a makeshift parachute. The three of them make a hard landing on a snowy mountain, and then they slide all the way down to a river. After surviving the rapids, the three of them float downstream, wondering where they’ll find civilization.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) – (c) Paramount Pictures
A while later Indy wakes and spots a village elder. It turns out that they’re in India. The village they’re taken to is poor and dying. The villagers believe that they’re bad conditions are from a thuggee cult stealing their sacred stone . . . and children. The villagers also believe that the Hindu god Shiva sent Indy, Willie and Short Round to them so that they can travel to Pankot Palace and return with their sacred Sivalinga stone.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) – (c) Paramount Pictures
Indy, Willie and Short Round travel via elephant through the jungle and reach Pankot the next day. There they meet with the Prime Minister Chattar Lal (Roshan Seth) and Maharajah (Raj Singh) and are treated as guests of the palace, complete with dining a most unusual dinner meal. Some Snake Surprise or Chilled Monkey Brains, anyone? 
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) – (c) Paramount Pictures
Later that night, Indy is ambushed and nearly killed in his room by a thuggee. He realizes that the palace is holding more secrets than the officials led to believe. In Willie’s bedroom is a secret passageway that leads straight into an underground temple. But first Indy and Short Round have to survive a harrowing encounter with a booby trapped room that nearly flattens them.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) – (c) Paramount Pictures
And then the movie takes a dark turn. The movie gets so dark and violent that it’s the reason that the MPAA created the PG-13 rating.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) – (c) Paramount Pictures
For Indiana Jones, Willie Scott and Short Round to survive the underground temple, they have to deal with the high priest Mola Ram (Amrish Puri) and his thuggee followers. Part of their ordeals involve Short Round becoming enslaved with the other children, Willie nearly being sacrificed in a pit of lava, and Indiana Jones fighting nearly every thuggee in the cult. Some of the highlights near the end of the movie involve a thrilling mine car ride / chase through the tunnels, and a harrowing fight sequence on an old bridge above crocodile-infested waters.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) – (c) Paramount Pictures
There’s little doubt that Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is a thrilling adventure movie. Northern India is about as exotic as it comes from an American perspective, and the evilness of the thuggee cult in the movie makes your skin crawl. You’ll be cheering for Indy to kill them all when he starts kicking ass in the final parts of the movie.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) – (c) Paramount Pictures
But is Temple of Doom a good movie?
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) – (c) Paramount Pictures
I want to like this movie. I really do. But too many areas bring down what could otherwise be a really good dark and evil adventure movie.
For starters, I can’t stand Kate Capshaw’s character, Willie Scott. She’s dumb, ignorant, and just plain annoying. Marion Ravenwood from Raiders and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull can and would kick Willie’s ass in a heartbeat. Perhaps Steven Spielberg was too busy eyeballing his future wife instead of properly “directing” her.
Short Round is another annoyance in Temple of Doom. Having him around as a sidekick was okay, but his fight scenes were completely unbelievable. A thin and frail kid shouldn’t be able to beat up fully grown men like he did against the thuggees. I took martial arts when I was that size, and while you can get in a good hit or two against an adult, the way Shorty was fighting just made me cringe. The thuggees should have taken him down in a flash. But Spielberg likes to have children as heroes, so the Short Round character can apparently beat up adult males. Great. Short Round’s best scene was when he beat the snot out of the kid maharajah.
Some of the special effects just looked really poor. From the trio falling from the airplane and landing on snow, to the poorly done effect of the airplane crashing into the mountain, to some of the mine car scenes, to even the effects of Indy climbing up and over the water gushing from the tunnels, it felt like many special effect scenes could have used a little extra attention. When compared to Raiders and Last Crusade, the special effects in Temple of Doom felt mediocre at best, something unheard of for a movie of this caliber.
And finally, the fight scene with Indy and the large thuggee on the conveyor belt had hilariously bad editing. One moment Indy is on his back and about to get crushed, and the next he recovers from the voodoo doll and is magically twenty feet away from the rock crusher. Come on, Spielberg! You and Lucas should have at least put a little bit of effort into that ridiculous attempt at making a thrilling scene!
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom does have its great action and adventure moments. The movie has a great breath of originality and gives you plenty of new material after the success of Raiders of the Lost Ark. In the end Indy is a buff action hero as he fights every thuggee in the cult. But to me, its flaws and other issues really drag down what could have been an outstanding movie. Personally, I rate this Indy film as the worst of the series, even going as far as putting it behind Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) – movie trailer
Indiana Jones (about to cut the rope bridge) – “Mola Ram! Prepare to meet Kali . . . in Hell!”