1984 action adventureRating: 12/20 (Dylan: 12/20)
Plot: Indiana Jones flees from Shanghai with his little bodyguard Short Round and a blond cabaret singer who spend the rest of the movie battling to become the most annoying character of the trilogy. They flip, flop, fly, fall, and end up somewhere in an Indian village where the villagers' magical testicle and children have been stolen. Indiana Jones and his peers travel via elephant to find fame and fortune and meet misadventure every step of the way.
Just not even nearly as good as Raiders of the Lost Ark. In fact, it's nowhere close, and my rating above is probably too nice for this mess. There are some good action sequences. The mine car chase, the collapsing room, and rope bridge scenes are very exciting, but don't come close to the traps, the chases, the fights, or the suspense of the first one. Whereas the pacing in the first movie is almost perfect, this one clunks. And whoever had the idea to start this one with a musical number really missed the boat. Harrison Ford gets some good one-liners and the title character stays a perfect heroic icon, but almost all of the comic relief courtesy of the stereotypical Asian kid and the damsel in distress doesn't work. The exception is when Short Round says to Indy, "You my best friend!" about an hour and thirteen minutes after he told an elephant, "You my best friend!" I can't stop quoting that one, generally to strangers in line with me at the grocery store. Such dark detours in this one, and although this was like candy for me as a kid, it really spoils the trilogy now.
Dylan refuses to be in these pictures. Rest assured, he does in fact exist.
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