Stoo said:
It's just too goofy. (Ex. the Jones' exchanging glances with the German pilot as his plane passes their car in the tunnel. Awful scene and just as bad as stuff in "Skull". Made me groan in the theatre and still hate it to this day.)
Now, I've watched an insane amount of old adventure movies & serials and can say with certainty that, of the first 3 films, "Crusade" borrows the least from the oldies. Much of it is more of an homage to "Raiders" than anything else. It's a slapstick version of the original with the booby traps at the end instead of the beginning.
Very much agreed. TLC is still enjoyable but you highlighted so many of my own issues with it. Way too goofy and slapsticky, and very much feeling like a cartoon version of the first film. At times it almost feels like a Three Stooges version of Indy. Audiences may have enjoyed the Nazis as the villains again but for me it felt tired to use them again so soon after TOD showed Indy doesn't always need them. I mentioned before how of all the films it feels the least pulpy and doesn't have the same adventure serial feel the others do. You're so right about the plane in the tunnel scene, when you look at TLC you see that it has just as much silly and over the top stuff in it as Crystal Skull.
People always lag to rag on how OTT the raft stunt in TOD is and of course the fridge in KOTCS and I'm not arguing both are extremely outlandish. But people give a pass to TLC's equally OTT, silly and/or implausible things, such as:
- Young Indy getting his fedora, chin scar, whip, fear of snakes and love of adventure all in the same afternoon.
- Young Indy escaping off of a moving train using a magic box he had no knowledge at all of how to use.
- The "Scottish Lord" disguise. Sorry but Indy isn't a character I like to see played for laughs.
- The revolving fireplace.
- Indy tumbling down the steps.
- The plane in the tunnel.
- The pen ink squirting in the eye.
- The Centuries-old Grail Knight (he's been alive for hundreds of years guarding the Holy Grail in a secret cavern?!).
And then there's the many cringe-inducing moments TLC's buffoonish versions of Brody and Sallah have. This movie for me was such a character assassination of those two. The way people tend to feel about Willie and Short Round in TOD is precisely how I feel about TLC's versions of Brody and Sallah.
If it seems like I dislike TLC, I don't. Not at all. But of all the Indy films it's the one I take most issue with and the only one I find diminishes the more I watch it. A more slapsticky, cartoony version of Indy just isn't my preference.