 |
| Harrison
Ford, Sean Connery, Denholm Elliott, Alison Doody, Julian
Glover, John Rhys-Davies, River Phoenix |
|
 |
Anamorphic
widescreen |
|
Dolby Digital
5.1 |
 |
DTS |
|
|
Trailer(s) |
|
Featurette(s) |
|
Documentary |
|
Audio commentary
|
|
Deleted scenes
|
|
Concept art
/ storyboards |
|
Multi-angle
feature |
|
|
|
|
Professor Henry Jones (Sean
Connery):
They're trying to kill us!
Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford): I know, Dad!
Professor Henry Jones: This is a new experience for me.
Indiana Jones: It happens to me all the time...
The daring archaeologist and his
father search for the Holy Grail and fight the Nazis.
 After
a sequel that incurred the wrath of many due to the nightmares
it ended up giving unsuspecting pre-teens and gullible adults alike,
Spielberg and Lucas played it safe in the third and - hopefully
but increasingly unlikely - the last film in the Indiana Jones
cycle. The result is an amusing but disappointingly lightweight
concoction with better writing than Temple of Doom, but
little sense of danger or real adventure. Starting with a cleverly
conceived opening sequence and some high-concept casting calls,
Last Crusade is marked by a sense of staleness that makes
much of the film seem little else than a less impressive retread
of
the
most
memorable
sequences
in Raiders.
With its sadly unconvinving stock villains, professionally executed
but rarely very exciting action sequences and a goofy sense of
humor that continually dissipates any real tension,
the
film's main raison d'ètre is the chemistry between
Ford and Connery, which almost pulls the film into the realm of
parody, but that provides several truly charming moments. But as
good as they are together, the scenes between Connery and Ford
end up deflating the Indiana Jones character somewhat by making
him the butt of too many jokes, without offering him enough opportunities
to redeem himself from the continued silliness in some inspired
action scenes. Oddly enough, it's the one film in the trilogy that
now seems the most
dated and the least inspired, as well as the one with the least
convincing special effects. |
|
 |
 |
|
|
Released for Region 1 and 2
in identical four-disc box sets that include all three Indiana
Jones films and a fourth disc of extras.
The anamorphic widescreen
image is framed at an aspect ratio of approx. 2.35:1. The
third film always had an oddly clean visual look compared
to the grittier first two films, making it the clearest and
most visually detailed transfer of the three as they appear
on DVD. Only in the bluescreen composite shots is there any
film grain visible, and colors are boosted a little less
strongly than they are on the first two films, making for
a more natural-looking color pallette.
The Dolby
Digital 5.1 sound mix is also the strongest of the three,
unsurprisingly boasting the best fidelity in the music as
well as the sound effects and dialogues. The directional
effects are more lively and more convincing than the first
two, and overall dynamics are also easily the best in the
set.
See our separate
review of disc four, which contains all the
extras in this box set. The
elaborately animated menu screens were clearly meant to reproduce
the design of Drew Struzan's poster art, but really just give you
a headache with their fuzzily rendered scene outlines.
Noah
Eamon
Reviewed:
October 27, 2003
Click
here for IMDB info on Indiana
Jones and the Last Crusade.
Click here
to return to the front page.
|
|
| |
