movie review
‘raiders’ ranks with best
By MATT MEYER
Or **• EnwraM
When I first looked at the ad in
the newspaper, I thought Harri
son Ford (of Star Wars fame)
was starring in a Western
It's a mistake anyone could
make, seeing him glaring men
acingly with a few days growth
on his chin, a coiled whip on his
shoulder, and a rumpled hat on
his head I held off seeing it
until I heard
What you've heard is true
Raiders of the Lost Ark is an
incredible movie rating right up
there with the greats, and with
good reason Raiders was writ
ten and produced by George
(Star Wars) Lucas and directed
by Steven (Jaws) Spielberg
With credits like that, you d na
turally expect lots of special
effects, action, comedy and su
spense And that s what you get
as Indiana Jones (Harrison
Ford) and Marion Ravenwood
(Karen Allen) whirl their way
through |am after jam with
edge-of-the-seat suspense and
hilarious results
The plot is simple enough
The Nazis are searching to
recover the Ark of the Covenant
a gold container used to carry
the stone tablets the Ten Com
mandments were written on,
according to the Old Testament
Indiana Jones, an adventurer
archeologist, is hired to recover
the ark before the Nazis do
Ravenwood Jones old flame
happens to possess the artifact
necessary to locate the missing
ark Put the pieces together and
you have a movie — an incredi
ble movie
The picture's strength lies in
its keen balance between action
and humor Jones and Raven
wood trade verbal — and occa
sionally physical — blows at
every turn, yet Lucas and Spiel
berg take special care to make
sure the comedy doesn't over
whelm the action The result is a
precisely produced film that
moves so fast you feel as though
you're on a roller coaster run by
a speed freak In spite of the
pace the audience never gets
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lost Everything is nice and tidy,
and the movie works like clock
work
Surprisingly enough, much of
this precision wasn't as careful
special effects, while awesome,
are a little too gruesome (heads
blowing up when a simple
decapitation would do) These
are just minor points, though.
Raiders of the Lost Ark is a tongue-in-cheek
throwback to the serials of the '30s and
'40s.
ly planned as one might expect
In the funniest scene of the
movie. Indiana Jones is faced
with a black-clothed assassin
wielding a scimitar that makes
Excalibur look like a Swiss army
knife The story goes that Ford
was miserable with a case of
dysentery and came up with a
new idea for the assassin s
demise largely as a way to get
out of Tunisia as quickly as
possible
Raiders of the Lost Ark is a
tongue-in-cheek throwback to
the serials of the '30s and '40s
Everything is there — the
rugged hero, the beautiful
heroine, the evil villains, fists,
machine guns everything It
would be hard to sit through the
whole film without comparing
Harrison Ford to Humphrey
Bogart at least once, and bad
guy Ronald Lacey would score
extremely well in a Peter Lorre
look-alike contest Karen Allen
isn't exactly the typical heroine
of the '30s, considering she
punches out and drinks down
guys right and left The combin
ation works perfectly, however,
and we find ourselves faced
with another shining addition to
the new brand of serial-type
movies characterized by Star
Wars
If there's a weak point to the
film, it would have to be that the
creators have their tongues too
firmly in their cheeks Marion
seems to continually run into
new situations in which she is
forced to wear revealing gowns
The bad guys are a little too
sadistic and cruel And the
^5
because no one expects the film
to be taken seriously It's good
clean entertainment, and that's
all it’s meant to be
So who cares if the char
acters are a little flat7 Or if cer
tain escapes are a tad bit
unbelievable? Raiders of the
Lost Ark is magnificent at what it
does — entertain
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