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If RAIDERS is a globetrotting adventure and TEMPLE OF DOOM is an impenetrable fortress mission than LAST CRUSADE combines a rescue mission yarn with a treasure map adventure. Influenced by James Bond more so than any of the other Indiana Jones tales, there are femme fatales and spies and double crosses and beautiful European locales and Sean Connery. Add in the ancient myth of the Holy Grail and you have an Indiana Jones adventure.

The third film starts with a flashback to Indiana Jones as a teenager, played by River Phoenix. We get to learn how he got his chin scar, his whip and his iconic Fedora. We also learn where is obsession for antiquities came from. His father, Henry Jones (Connery), has been looking for the Holy Grail for decades. Now wealthy collector Walter Donovan (Julian Glover, CRY FREEDOM) thinks he has a big break in discovering the lost chalice of Christ. But it seems Indy’s father has gone missing while helping Donovan. So Indy heads to Venice, Italy to meet Austrian historian Elsa Schneider (Alison Doody, A VIEW TO A KILL), whom will lead Indy on his journey toward locating the Grail, which Nazi Colonel Vogel (Michael Byrne, BRAVEHEART) desperately wants to get his hands on as well.

Like the combative banter between Indy and Marion in RAIDERS, Harrison Ford and Connery create a father-son rapport that is similarly entertaining. It seems that with each subsequent sequel Indy gets another full-fledged sidekick. Here Indy has his father, his bumbling college associate Dr. Marcus Brody (Denholm Elliott, TRADING PLACES) and Sallah (John Rhys-Davies, TV’s SLIDERS), Indy’s Arab associate returning after an appearance in the original film. Brody adds humor, while Sallah adds color and nostalgia.

The best later Bond films revitalized the series with ingenious new sets pieces, new pretty woman and great villains. LAST CRUSADE does two of these three and then adds in Indiana Jones backstory that answers questions debated by fans over diner food, late at night. The Venice catacombs and boat race sequences are wonderfully staged and designed. The escape from the zeppelin is ingenious and funny. Some of the other action set pieces, however, feel even more retooled from ones in RAIDERS. Nonetheless, they are all constructed with tension and most importantly humor. Steven Spielberg never forgets that the adventure needs to be fun. While the darker tone of DOOM is different, the lighter tone of CRUSADE is more entertaining.

LAST CRUSADE is still the best sequel in the series, because it balances big action, witty banter and innocent silliness in the right doses. The new dynamic between Indy and his father is developed nicely, giving them a friendly combative relationship where the father can’t help but tell his son how he’s lead his life astray, and the son can’t help but tell his father how he never listened to him. Ford seems born to play Indiana Jones and Connery has grown to play his father.

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