No doubt about it - the early eighties was the decade where Harrison Ford reigned supreme as a god amongst men. Both Han Solo and Indiana Jones dominated the action movie landscape, and without Ford's presence, both movies would have been poorer. And with Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull just around the corner, I thought I'd put my two cents in on the coolest, most two fisted, action packed trilogy in Hollywood history.

So lets take a peek at Indy's second adventure The Temple of Doom

The follow-up film was made three years after Raiders set the box office on fire. There was a lot of pressure on the team to replicate the success of the first picture, and despite being the black sheep of the family, for the most part, I think they succeeded.

Temple of Doom opens with - of all things - a music number in a Shanghai nightclub. We meet up with the intrepid Doctor Jones as he narrowly escapes death from the hands of a sinister Chinese gangster named Lao Che. He and his local sidekick Short Round (Ke Huy Quan, fresh off The Goonies) and a sexy nightclub singer named Willie Scott (the soon to be misses Spielberg, Kate Capshaw) find themselves on a on a cargo plane just ahead of Lao Che's men. Unfortunately the cargo plane belongs to Lao Che Shipping and the pilots abandon ship somewhere in the mountains of India.

Indy, being Indy, manages to escape the crashing plane, a pseudo-toboggan run down the side of a mountain, a plunge off a cliff and a river full of rapids where they find themselves taken in by a small village where there is little food and not a single child.

It turns out that a local bad guy stole their sacred stone which in turn caused the villager's bad luck. Indy being the professional that he is, deduces that this must be one of the fabled Sankara Stones, reputed to have supernatural properties. Indy's investigation takes him to a palace where they discover the existence of a deadly cult who indulge in all kinds of human sacrifices to their god, Kail, inside the Temple of Doom and where all of the missing children work in the mines. Indy decides to steal the stone back and free the kids but the high priest, Mola Ram (Amrish Puri), wants him dead. . .

Temple of Doom takes a lot of heat because it's such a dark and gruesome movie - but then, is an army of Nazis getting their faces melted off by the wrath of god any more horrific? Not really. The problem of course is that everyone knows that the Nazis are over the top evil - you know what comes with them part and parcel, they're the perfect villain. You say thuggie cult and people go wha-huh? No, you had to show Mola Ram and his flunkies being mustache twirlingly evil, to build them up as a credible threat.

Willie Scott isn’t as strong of a character as Marion - but then a nightclub singer would scream more at insects and death traps and cultists than a hard boiled, hard drinking daughter of an archeologist would. It's not a badly written character, just one that's not Marion. Short Round does grate at times as the plucky kid sidekick, but only in places.

That said, Temple of Doom is very much an old school Hollywood jungle adventure turned into a modern feature film, and it’s still a pretty rollicking good time that's a whole lot of fun.

THE DVD -
Released on DVD back in 2003, Temple of Doom sports a 2.35.1 anamorphic widescreen theatrical aspect ratio with some very nice image quality is very nice across the board. The colors look accurate compared to my laserdiscs and what I remember from the movies as a kid, some of the effects have been cleaned up (like, for example, the reflection of the glass between Indy and the Cobra in Raiders), and given an overall sweep of the restoration brush. There's a bit of mild grain present and very infrequent specks here and there but aside from that the films look very good.

The disc sports an English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound mix and alternate Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo tracks are provided in French and Spanish with optional subtitles available in English, French and Spanish. The disc sounds great with plenty of surround sound popping up in the mix at the right time and with some great Subwoofer workout.

THE EXTRAS -
The disc of Temple of Doom is devoid of extras itself. However the box set has, in addition to the three films, a fourth disc filled to the brim. Its here you get all the hidden treasures and assorted documentaries. We start off with a pretty beefy piece on the making of the trilogy, with just about all the principal cast and crew involved. There's a documentary on the special effects in a pre computer generated world. There's a short documentary with Ben Burtt, sound and editing god about how the trilogy is an adventure in sound. There's a segment on the stunt work - back in the days where a director was not afraid to dangle a man from the back of a speeding truck and put his life in danger for the sake of art. We get a documentary on John Williams and the Indy trilogy score, a selection of teasers and trailers from all three movies. Rounding out the package is a handful of DVD rom material - but this is mostly spyware and DRM crap, so give that a miss.

THE BOTTOM LINE -
While not as good as Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom is still a fun ride with all kinds of spills and chills along the way. It's a dark film, so it may not be for everyone's tastes - but it's still pretty tame to the violence and horror that passes for mainstream movies these days.

MY OTHER INDIANA JONES REVIEWS
* Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
* Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
* Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
* Raiders of the Lost Ark

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older