What Your Favourite Indiana Jones Movie Says About You
1. Raiders Of The Lost Ark (1981)
The Movie: Eminent archeologist, adventurer and University professor Indiana Jones is recruited to track down the legendary Ark of the Covenant before his long-time rival and the Nazis use it take over the world.
What It Says About You: You're an Indy purist, and by you own standards, a movie traditionalist. It's in your firm belief that, though they each have their merits, the sequels never managed to top the sensational original. You like to think you take cinema quite seriously. Yes: you're up for adventure and frolics now and again - you like Indiana Jones, after all - and Raiders of the Lost Ark is a perfect blend of good old-fashioned cinema and sincere homage. The bad guy here, Belloq, is the strongest of all Indy adversaries, and that goes for female lead Marion Ravenwood, too. She has guts, unlike the screaming blonde and the Nazi. Raiders also clings firmly to a proper story, with set-pieces that sit naturally in amongst the narrative. You're convinced that the truck chase is the greatest action sequence in any movie ever, and that Raiders trumps the other films in its willingness to appear semi-realistic - Indy gets shot, for God's sake, and there's a gritty splatter of blood to prove it! Then there's the all-powerful Ark of the Covenant, which really is the most brilliant MacGuffin of the four. Sankara stones? Pah. Holy Grail? It's just a cup. That Crystal Skull? No comment. For you, there's simply no way to build on such a thoroughly perfect adventure film like Raiders of the Lost Ark. It embraces you warmly with a hint of nostalgia, like a hug from Uncle Spielberg himself, yet it never crumbles under its serial movie origins and chooses to plays things admirably straight. There's an original narrative, and that's really important to you, because an Indiana Jones film is only ever as good as its story. Favourite Movies: The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), King Solomon's Mines (1950)