Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

The third instalment in Steven Spielberg and George Lucas’s adventure series influenced by Saturday morning serials is also the most light-hearted.
“Though it seems to have the manner of some magically reconstituted B-movie of an earlier era, The Last Crusade is an endearing original.” Vincent Canby, The New York Times, 1989 The archaeologist-adventurer Indiana Jones, wryly played by Harrison Ford, acquired in his third movie a more comic side than fans of his previous outings – Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) – were accustomed to. This was prompted by the introduction of the hero’s disapproving, tweed-wearing father Henry (Sean Connery), whom he rescues from the clutches of Nazis hunting for the Holy Grail. The brightness of The Last Crusade, and its return to the globe-trotting, caper-like feel of the first picture, was a reaction by Spielberg to complaints about the gruesome, gruelling Temple of Doom. Highlights here include a rip-roaring prologue with the late River Phoenix as a young Indy, acquiring his trademark phobias and accoutrements in a single adolescent adventure. Subsequent action-adventure films featuring fictional Nazi villains include The Rocketeer (1991), Hellboy (2004) and Inglourious Basterds (2009).
1989 USA
Directed by
Steven Spielberg
Produced by
Robert Watts
Written by
Jeffrey Boam, Tom Stoppard
Featuring
Harrison Ford, Denholm Elliott, Alison Doody
Running time
127 minutes