Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom Reviews

an unbelievably crass, unpleasant, horrific picture

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4

More gore, gross-outs than the other Indy blockbusters.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

Again you will savor the Indiana Jones schizophrenia: by day a bow-tied, bespectacled archaeologist; by night a resourceful swaggerer, whom Ford brings to life as a modern blend of Bogie and the Duke, with just a glint of misfit psychopathy in his eyes.

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It's not the darker turn that makes The Temple of Doom uncomfortable at times; it's its mean-spiritedness.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

...an obvious step down from its stellar predecessor...

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

[T]he best of the Indiana Jones movies...it's insanely wonderful, in every sense of those words.

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It lacks the sense of detail that made Raiders such a treat. It isn't very clever, very funny or very compelling.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

The reality is that this is the film that comes closest to reflecting the racism, sexism and jingoism that fuelled most of the serials that originally sparked Spielberg and George Lucas's impressionable young imaginations.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

Where the brilliant "Raiders" was an adventure film aimed at the child at heart, "Temple of Doom" is really designed for the kiddie market itself.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5

If it was a sign of the times for Indiana Jones to take on more of a comic-book aspect, the film's accomodation of darker themes and explicit imagery came as something of a shock to many.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

...makes you wonder if Spielberg and series producer George Lucas might have been going through some sort of drug phase.

Full Review | Original Score: 1.5/4

While 'The Temple of Doom' is a bit gloomy, puts children in danger, and confines its action primarily to one spot, it's still quite entertaining. (Blu-ray edition)

Full Review | Original Score: 8/10

A breakneck adventure that moves at twice the pace of the original but has only half the creative strength.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

Fantastically choreographed action sequences and another comely companion for Indy (Capshaw) and gloriously overdone visual devices make up for the shameless lack of plot.

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Pic comes on like a sledgehammer, and there's even a taste of vulgarity and senseless excess not apparent in Raiders.

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The film betrays no human impulse higher than that of a ten-year-old boy trying to gross out his baby sister by dangling a dead worm in her face.

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Though not as thrilling as Raiders of the Lost Ark, the second chapter still has merits, particularly its fast pacing, spectacular opening scene, and visual effects, which won the Oscars in 1984.

Full Review | Original Score: B

See website for more details.

Full Review | Original Score: 7.5/10

darker indiana, still grand

| Original Score: 4/4

...it's cathartic as hell, for Spielberg and for those of us who go for the ride. The mayhem is transporting, inspired, exultant...

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5