11/12/2023 0 Comments Temple of doom![]() ![]() It has often been the true-even if not fully acknowledged-subject of movies. (The name Mola Ram is an anagram for Malomar the Thugs-expert stranglers and sneaks -and the evil cult of Kali will be familiar to people who have seen the 1939 adventure comedy Gunga Din.) ![]() The quest takes the three to the sumptuous palace of an odious boy maharajah (where the gold-digger Willie breathes the atmosphere of wealth and is momentarily in ecstasy), and from there, by underground passageway, to the temple where the villainous high priest Mola Ram (Amrish Puri), the leader of the Thugs, presides over human sacrifices to the goddess Kali. ![]() The three agree to go on a mission to retrieve the stone and the children, and the chieftain provides them with elephants to ride, and guides. The sacred stone that they believe conferred blessings on them has been stolen, and their children have disappeared. He takes them to his blighted village the land is arid, and the starving villagers are in mourning. There they are greeted by an elderly tribal chieftain who believes they have come in response to his prayers to Siva. After a scramble at the club that features a diamond, a dose of poison, a vial of antidote, a lazy Susan, a pack of Oriental gangsters, and a rickshaw, and turns into a full-blown masterpiece of cheerful slapstick, Willie and Indy and his tiny, daredevil sidekick, the Chinese orphan Short Round (Ke Huy Quan), make a fast getaway by plane and drop off (literally) in India. The plot is minimal this time: the action starts in Shanghai, at the Obi Wan night club, where the lusty blond Willie (Kate Capshaw), in a spangled crimson gown, struts in front of a line of tap-dancing chorus girls and belts out the film’s keynote song, “Anything Goes,” in English and Chinese. ![]() Indy seems more assured now, and more formidable physically-he’s a professor with the chest of a horse. Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford), who wears a brown fedora and carries specs and a bullwhip. The two films have the same adventurer-archaeologist hero, Dr. It doesn’t have the serious undercurrents that Raiders had it’s less “sincere”- and that’s what is so good about it. Set in 1935, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom probably has to be called a pre-sequel, or prequel, to Raiders of the Lost Ark, which was set in 1936, but it isn’t pulpy in the way that Raiders was. (If it were modest and unassuming, it would fall apart.) And it leaps from one visual exaggeration to another-overbearingness is part of its breakneck style. Indiana Jones is a series of whoppers-it depends on verve and imagination to concoct the next big fib. This kind of storytelling doesn’t have to be heartfelt it just has to hold your interest (and delight you). A friend of mine denounced the picture as “heartless” another friend called it “overbearing.” In a sense, they’re right, but they’re also off the beam. He starts off at full charge in the opening sequence and just keeps going. Nobody has ever fused thrills and laughter in quite the way that he does here. He creates an atmosphere of happy disbelief: the more breathtaking and exhilarating the stunts are the funnier they are. In Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the director Steven Spielberg is like a magician whose tricks are so daring they make you laugh. The great thing about a tall tale on the screen is that you can be shown the preposterous and the implausible. ![]()
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