Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom

This movie is one of the most relentlessly nonstop action pictures ever made, with a virtuoso series of climactic sequences that must last an hour and never stop for a second. It's a roller-coaster ride, a visual extravaganza, a technical triumph, and a whole lot of fun.

The sustained furore of humour, visual panache and headlong momentum makes for dazzling cinema.

The new film is more an embellishment than an improvement on the snazzy Raiders.

The nonstop pace may eventually numb viewers to the thrills, although Spielberg must be congratulated for adding some shades of character to his archetypal action hero this time around.

Moviegoers deserve more than the racism, sexism, and all-purpose mayhem on view here - failings that offset the razor-sharp action and technical brilliance also visible.

Spielberg has gone to such lengths to avoid boredom that he has leaped squarely into the opposite trap: this movie has such unrelenting action that it jackhammers you into a punch-drunk stupor. This may be the first movie whose audience O.D.'s on action. [4 June 1984, p.78]

The heroic irony that was hilarious in Raiders is merely ridiculous here, and the half-tribute/half-parody of the adventure genre is toyed with to threadbare extremes. [23 May 1984]

Every time I watch this, it somehow gets worse! It's just a bunch of gross-out crap and close calls, like just about every 80s action/horror/adventure movie. The story is uninteresting, the characters, boring, and it's not funny in the least. Indiana Jones starts to get good during The Last Crusade.

A divisive chapter among fans of the series, Temple of Doom is easily the silliest of the initial Indiana Jones trilogy. While I've heard the argument that this character thrives on fantastical situations and traces of lore, for my money the envelope is pressed just a bit too far in this instance. Sure, Raiders used the power of the ark to melt the ****' skin and Crusade showcased an immortal knight with a collection of stand-in grails, but in each case those represented the climax of a long, grounded adventure. A mere taste of supernatural payoff. Temple shows no such restraint, diving straight in with voodoo dolls, mysterious brainwashing liquids and, memorably, bare-handed heart removals. It also tinkers with the formula of Jones as a loner, with equally mixed success. Indy's de-facto sidekick, Short Round, plays up every stereotype of a kid tagalong. He's shoehorned in, no doubt about it, but also adds a new dimension to the larger-than-life lead character via their rapid-fire rapport. The additional presence of a blonde love interest, on the other hand, seems redundant and unnecessary. Her constant shrieks and clueless nature gives the impression Indy's babysitting two kids. Of course, it's not all bad news: Harrison Ford works wonders with his shadier lines and knocks the good ones right out of the park, the comic relief scenes (though over-applied) work surprisingly well, and the action / adventure elements the series is best known for hit all the right buttons. There's no shortage of that old, familiar formula here, but I wonder if Spielberg and Lucas may have overreached in an effort to make the film more palatable to the Saturday morning cartoon crowd.

its ok more action packed then the first movie but the side characters are also more annoying I liked the setting a bit more though

Plot is interesting and mysterious at times but ends up being rather banal and very boring during its development. Also the dose of action and adventure is rather negative

I was told growing up that this movie wasn't quite as good as the original, and that the gore and violence was over the top. I'm so used to hyperbole that I expected the movie to not be that bad, but now that I've watched it I can confidently say that this movie is SIGNIFICANTLY worse than the original. Almost every scene is difficult to watch because of the violent imagery, and this is coming from someone who loved The Revenant. The plot is garbage, and revolves around Indiana Jones helping a Hindhu tribe get their magic stone back. Jones was apparently willing to risk the life of a young boy throughout this entire adventure, and it wasn't even for some greater good cause, it was so some Hindhu tribe could get their magic stone. Such a downgrade from the original.