Raiders of the Lost Ark

UK Release Date: 30 July 1981

Certification: PG

Director: Steven Spielberg

Cast: Karen Allen, John Rhys-Davies, Denholm Elliott, Harrison Ford, Paul Freeman, Ronald Lacey, Alfred Molina

Rating: 80%

The Return of the Great Adventure. 

Review:

Steven Spielberg, one of the greatest directors of all time coming off of the back of classics; Jaws and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Harrison Ford one of the most in demand actors at the time. Put them together you get 'the' action-adventure classic, Raiders of the Lost Ark.

An action-adventure movie needs to have decent action and Raiders of the Lost Ark does have that. A lot of the practical effects are actually still very impressive. The opening scene is of course iconic and is perhaps the highlight of the movie. Another action set-piece that has become extremely well-known over the years is the chase scene in the market in Cairo which is a particularly funny moment in the movie. 

Along with Han Solo and Rick Deckard, Indiana Jones is another one of Harrison Ford's iconic roles. He's able to play Indy with a certain swagger and like-ability that is known throughout Ford's roles. He earned a sweet six million dollar pay check for his role in the movie [30% of the movie's budget] as he made his way to becoming the most paid actor of all time. 

John Williams, where do we start? His score elevates this movie to a whole other level and considering that he's composed for over 50 years and the calibre of movies he's worked on, it's up there with the best if not the best of not only his work but of all time. Of course it was nominated for an Oscar for best original score at the 54th Academy Awards - as John Williams holds the records for the most nominations, 52 - only losing out to Vangelis' Chariots of Fire score.

My biggest and only complaint for the movie is that I don't feel Raiders of the Lost Ark holds up fairly well. Whether this is down to the budgeting or not I don't know but the movie did have a budget of $20 million. Three movies that are in my top ten favourite movies of all time were released in a similar timeframe to this and they all had much smaller budgets. Jaws had a budget of $7 million, Alien had a budget of $11 million and The Terminator had a budget of $6.4 million - and those three films are in my opinion are better in both terms of special effects and my personal enjoyment of the movies. I feel ultimately the fact that the movie tried to be innovative, which it did end up doing as it won an Oscar for its special effects, which is why it doesn't hold up as well as other movies. 

I know that I wasn't born in the right decade to properly experience the beauty of Raiders of the Lost Ark but like other classics I know the influence of the movie on both filmmaking and our culture over the year, I just felt that the movie feels a little more dated than other well-known movies made during the same era.