Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)

Today's movie is real bad one...maybe the worst I've ever seen. It was the brain child of this guy named George Lucas. Apparently this Lucas  made a few go-no-where movies in the 70's and 80's. Course Lucas only came up with the story. It was directed by this fella Steven Spielberg, who is best know for directing the 1971 made for TV movie Duel. He probably should have stopped there, but he didn't.

Synopsis: A college professor of archeology, is contracted out by the U.S. government to stop the Nazi's from getting their hand on the lost Ark of the Covenant in 1936.

All you have to do is read what I wrote above and know this movie has some major problems. Alright, a college professor is going to fight Nazis. I've seen college professors before and most look like they couldn't fight off a bad cold, let alone the entire Third Reich. And get this, he fights them with ....wait for it....A WHIP! So I guess he is also into some kind of weird S&M stuff. Oh he's gonna punish those Nazis good...and well they are German, so they might like it. Germans are into weird stuff.

I mean I guess this movie hold together OK, but geez this dude is getting into a fight with someone every five minutes it seems. No one can actually kill the guy,though. I guess having bad aim is required to be part of the Nazis. The ending is also kinda anti-climatic and reeks of Deus Ex Machina. And I was hoping for a big finish, but it wasn't to be found in this movie.I guess that truck chase was big, but it was like way back near the end of the 2nd act!

It's kinda sad...I mean if these two guys could have made a good movie, then I'm sure they'd both have long careers. And I don't think they'd be like some writers or directors who start to lose their touch and stop listening to their fans. Then start mucking with their perfectly fine movies, and making these movies that only they really like, but since they are so rich they don't care if anyone else likes them or not. No, I'm sure they'd have long careers and many many happy fans.

There were a couple of sequels to this movie, but I'd never heard of them before I stumbled on this one. They probably went straight to video. So I popped them in and the next two are just as bad as this one, but the fourth one was alright. Too bad it didn't have more to work with. I might review those at some point too if I can sit through them.

Raiders of the Lost Ark gets a 1 out 5 on the Cheese-O-Meter.

Until next time, see you on the front line.

-Matt