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The original was posted on /r/movies by /u/miz445 on 2023-08-02 01:28:37+00:00.

I recently re-watched Raiders of the Lost Ark for the first time in many years. This was a movie I had remembered loving for its plethora of action sequences and stunts. While I still enjoyed the action upon my re-watch, there was something about the movie as a whole that felt hollow. I couldn’t quite articulate my thoughts until I came across a critic’s review from the Philadelphia Daily News, 1981:

Here are a few quotes (at times a bit harsh, in fairness) from that article that resonated with my feelings:

[…this is another elephantine adolescent fantasy that’s generous in scale and effect but stingy in heart and soul. There’s no sense of humanity here, just an empty core surrounded by a big-toy-of-a-movie. And I, for one, can’t get caught up in any film’s action when I don’t care about the people involved.]

[Spielberg was on the right track when he named his two lead characters “Indiana Jones” and “Marion Ravenwood.” But it would have been nice if he created some personalities, some tics and traits to go along with these game monikers…]

[Both stars go through the motions without bringing anything else to their characters. These are technically valid but empty performances.]

[There’s no denying that the film is supremely well made or that perhaps it would be easier to enjoy if it hadn’t been preceded by so many other cotton-candy movies this year. As it is, watching “Raiders of the Lost Ark” is akin to trying to enjoy an expensive almond pie after having consumed 30 lbs. of junk food.]

Reading this review was extremely helpful for pinpointing why I felt the movie rang a bit hollow. It feels like we’re constantly launching into a new action scene just after completing the last one. Not only does this allow little time for the audience to take a breath and decompress from what they just witnessed, but it also squanders opportunities to add more substance to the characters and story. I fully realize that this is first and foremost an action-adventure movie and I’m not saying that all movies need some sort of profound message or immense meaning. But while I was able to get on board with the mission itself (thwart the Nazi’s attempt to steal the Ark), I found it difficult to get attached to the protagonists because they too often felt amorphic.

Take Indy for example. He’s a very stoic, almost robotic character at times. When he meets Marion in Nepal, the way he interacts with her is so ruthlessly efficient and curt that it makes it hard to like him or root for him and undermines the believability of whatever sort of love interest was supposed to be shared between him and Marion (the fact that it was an underage relationship adds to the bizarreness here).

That Marion willingly follows him and puts herself into danger over and over again on his behalf feels off given their initial animosity. And yet, Indy appears downtrodden when he thinks she is dead, and he and Marion share a passionate kiss when he discovers her alive. It just feels like they hastily set up and resolved their conflict instead of allowing that conflict to evolve and eventually resolve in a more interesting way throughout the film. If, for instance, Marion’s initial motivation would have been tied to honoring her father’s (Abner) legacy and that’s why she follows Indy, they could have slowly diffused the conflict between her and Indy throughout the movie as she realizes Indy’s motivation isn’t just purely about his own archaeological interests, but also his desire for honoring the legacy of Abner by finishing the mission that his mentor (and her father) devoted his life to. That would have been a more compelling reason for why they team up and eventually redevelop feelings for one another.

Another example would be the character of Belloq. I think he’s a really solid villain overall and serves as a great character foil to Indy, but I really wish we were given more backstory about their rivalry (I understand from research that we do get this in the books, but that’s irrelevant to the discussion of the movie). Although we see him in the first scene of the movie, all we’re really told is that they’re competitors, and throughout the movie we realize that Belloq is a figure happy to eschew morality in pursuit of his own gain, while Indy’s motivations are purer. It would have been more interesting to establish specifically why they are enemies and how their paths eventually diverged toward good and evil.

I also think that with Belloq, I’m sometimes confused in how I should feel about him. Sure, he’s this greedy guy that doesn’t care what it takes to acquire whatever treasure he is after. But it’s also heavily implied that he thinks quite little of his employer, the Nazis, and we also see moments where he clashes with them over their treatment of Marion. I think it would have been better if they either made Belloq this ruthless, merciless figure with no inkling of humanity, or they should have fully leaned into is humanity by having him turn to the good side, allowing Toht and his men to serve as the primary villain. Instead, I get distracted over whether I should be hating Belloq or Toht/Nazis more. I just think the villains are a bit muddled here.

Those are just a few examples of how I think the characters were sort of shoehorned into the plot in order to accommodate the copious amount of action scenes, and while the result is a very exciting movie, it is also one that leaves me craving a story with more depth and characters with more fleshed-out personalities, motivations, and backstories. As the review so perfectly stated, “watching Raiders of the Lost Ark is akin to trying to enjoy an expensive almond pie after having consumed 30 lbs. of junk food.” You might love sweets, but too much of it and you start to feel sick.