Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade Steven Spielberg

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 84% based on 136 reviews, with an average rating of 8/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "Lighter and more comedic than its predecessor, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade returns the series to the brisk serial adventure of Raiders, while adding a dynamite double act between Harrison Ford and Sean Connery."[56] Metacritic calculated a weighted average score of 65 out of 100 based on 14 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[57] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "A" on an A+ to F scale.[58]

Jay Boyar of the Orlando Sentinel said that while the film "lacks the novelty of Raiders, and the breathless pacing of Temple of Doom, it was an entertaining capper to the trilogy."[59] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone remarked the film was "the wildest and wittiest Indy of them all". Richard Corliss of Time and David Ansen of Newsweek praised it, as did Vincent Canby of The New York Times.[13] "Though it seems to have the manner of some magically reconstituted B-movie of an earlier era, The Last Crusade is an endearing original," Canby wrote, calling the revelation that Jones had a father who was not proud of him to be a "comic surprise". Canby believed that while the film did not match the previous two in its pacing, it still had "hilariously off-the-wall sequences" such as the circus train chase. He also said that Spielberg was maturing by focusing on the father–son relationship,[60] a call echoed by McBride in Variety.[61] Roger Ebert praised the sequence depicting Jones as a Boy Scout with the Cross of Coronado, comparing it to the "style of illustration that appeared in the boys' adventure magazines of the 1940s". He said that Spielberg "must have been paging through his old issues of Boys' Life magazine...the feeling that you can stumble over astounding adventures just by going on a hike with your Scout troop. Spielberg lights the scene in the strong, basic colors of old pulp magazines."[62] The Hollywood Reporter felt Connery and Ford deserved Academy Award nominations.[13]

It was panned by Andrew Sarris in The New York Observer, David Denby in New York magazine, Stanley Kauffmann in The New Republic and Georgia Brown in The Village Voice.[13] Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader called the film "soulless".[63] The Washington Post reviewed the film twice; Hal Hinson's review on the day of the film's release was negative, describing it as "nearly all chases and dull exposition". Although he praised Ford and Connery, he felt the film's exploration of Jones's character took away his mystery and that Spielberg should not have tried to mature his storytelling.[64] Two days later, Desson Thomson published a positive review praising the film's adventure and action, as well as the father–son relationship's thematic depth.[65]

Influence

The film won the Academy Award for Best Sound Effects Editing; it also received nominations for Best Original Score and Best Sound (Ben Burtt, Gary Summers, Shawn Murphy and Tony Dawe), but lost to The Little Mermaid and Glory respectively.[66] Connery received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor.[67] Connery and the visual and sound effects teams were also nominated at the 43rd British Academy Film Awards.[68] The film won the 1990 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation,[69] and was nominated for Best Motion Picture Drama at the Young Artist Awards.[70] John Williams's score won a Broadcast Music Incorporated Award, and was nominated for a Grammy Award.[71]

The prologue depicting Jones in his youth inspired Lucas to create The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles television series, which featured Sean Patrick Flanery as the young adult Indiana and Corey Carrier as the 8- to 10-year-old Indiana.[11] According to Dark Horse Comics author Lee Marrs, Lucasfilm considered for a while to make a continuation to the film series starring Phoenix as a younger Jones, but these plans were dropped after his untimely death.[72] The 13-year-old incarnation played by Phoenix in the film was the focus of a Young Indiana Jones series of young adult novels that began in 1990;[73] by the ninth novel, the series had become a tie-in to the television show.[74] German author Wolfgang Hohlbein revisited the prologue in one of his novels, in which Jones encounters the lead grave robber—whom Hohlbein christens Jake—in 1943.[75] The film's ending begins the 1995 comic series Indiana Jones and the Spear of Destiny, which moves forward to depict Jones and his father searching for the Holy Lance in Ireland in 1945.[76] Spielberg intended to have Connery cameo as Henry in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), but Connery turned it down as he had retired.[77]

Petra's use for the movie's climactic scenes greatly contributed to its popularity as an international tourist destination. Before the film's release, only a few thousand visitors per year made the trip; since then it has grown to almost a million annually.[78] Shops and hotels near the site play up the connection, and it is mentioned prominently in itineraries of locations used in the film series.[79] Jordan's tourism board mentions the connection on its website.[80] In 2012, the satirical news site The Pan-Arabia Enquirer ran a mock story claiming that the board had officially renamed Petra "That Place from Indiana Jones" to reflect how the world more commonly refers to it.[81]