It is not a good film. Kate Capshaw and that little Chinese kid are incredibly annoying…and a film aims for pure entertainment should not have annoying characters. It also feels to build up the dark elements. A film like Alien had that infamous chestburster scene, but you also knew that something bad would happen. Here, they just throw this stuff at you out of nowhere. Trying to mix this in with the juvenile comedy elements of the film (“chilled monkey brains”) makes the film seem rather sadistic.

I really suspect that Spielberg simply did not know what to do with this film, and simply decided to throw everything he could think of at the viewer.

I've always liked TEMPLE OF DOOM, which is far more entertaining than the overstuffed LAST CRUSADE with its incessant, tiresome banter between Ford and Connery.

Capshaw is infuriating and inferior to Karen Allen and I would have loved to see Ford and Capshaw sit down to that infamous dinner and be served a generous helping of Short Round brains.

Spielberg later criticised his own film for the lack of warmth and humanity.

There is some truth in that statement, but the movie does have a great villain in Mola Ram and moves at a breakneck pace to an exciting conclusion.

I love ToD! They go in order for me, with Raiders in my all-time Top 10 (awesome seeing in it in IMAX last week). Temple of Doom was ahead of its time, with an odd mixture of really dark themes with a lot of light, somewhat corny comedy. That's kind of what makes Temple so much fun, it would have these ridiculous little scenes where Jones is bickering with Willie or Short Round (the dialouge is spot on, and the actors are great together), then suddenly we are watching kids getting brutally whipped and men having their hearts literally ripped out of their bodies. I feel like Tarantino must love ToD, because so many of his films have this same mixture of fun comedy with harsh, violent moments of sobriety, though to much more extreme levels of violence, of course. Because it's so intense at times, I get why it's not for everyone. But it was very daring to make this story the way they did, and I think they did so quite successfully.

Willie is purposefully polar opposites of Marion, and this film's tone is almost polar opposite of Raiders, while still remaining an exciting "popcorn flick." But Willie is very much needed here. Marion was serious and no-nonsense, but everything that is happening in this story calls for fun, likable, and fairly simple characters for us to relate to on this crazy journey. But just like Raiders, and Last Crusade, it's just outrageous fun from beginning to end. The escape from the plane using a life raft scene? Still jaw-dropping to watch today as the boat inflates while dropping all in one camera shot. Makes the unbelievable seem so possible. And at the end when he raises his machete over his head on the suspension bridge and Shortie says to Willie, "Hang on lady, we're going for a ride!"Classic! Ford really played Indy like a badass in Doom, and you can see how jacked he is here compared to Raiders. All three define what a summer movie should be, and those who don't like ToD, I'm sorry you can't find the fun, excitement, and laughs that I've gotten from it for almost 30 years. I've seen it more than 50 times in my life, and it still makes me laugh and gets my adrenaline going today. Can't wait for the Blu-Ray set!