Okay, this is a long chapter. This whip stunt looks a little awkward. It's almost like the soldier willingly gives up his gun. It would have been nice to see Harrison actually whip the gun in one shot, like in the documentary. Unfortunately the whip becomes underused in this movie.
Here we're giving some back-story about Mac and Indy's relationship. I like Mac for most of this movie. He provides a nice link between the good guys and the bad guys. There are some nice humorous moments here with the lowering and rising of the guns and the "I like Ike" line.
Indy escapes. If there's one thing I love about Indiana Jones movies, it's when Indy escapes the villains and starts creating havoc. For the next few scenes, everything is perfect. Indy is climbing things, jumping from things, driving, being shot at, and the Raiders March is playing all along.
I really like this stunt. It reminds me of the leap onto the tank in Last Crusade. It was probably a stunt man, but he really moves around like Harrison.
When I heard that the warehouse from Raiders was going to be in this movie, I worried about how they would handle the Ark. But, the way they used it here was perfect. The whole theme behind the Ark was that it was always out of reach. Whenever Indy though he had finally captured the Ark, it was always taken away. There's a certain humor in that he once again comes so close to capturing the Ark, but he doesn't even know it's there!
The "You don't know him!" line from Mac reminds us not to underestimate Indy, even if he is a little older this time. Indy continues to wreck havoc and evade the enemy, but I feel like things are getting a little too fast now. Indy is swinging out of a truck and hopping along thin beams of wood within seconds.
And if you blink for a moment, you're suddenly in a completely different environment.
It's nice to see the physical rivalry between Dovchenko and Indy that consummates throughout the movie. Dovchenko plays two parts in this movie: The "second in command", like Dietrich or Vogel and the "big brute" like the German mechanic or the big Thugee. I like that they combined those two roles for Dovchenko.
Now, the prairie dogs. I don't have a problem with them. This scene always got a laugh in theaters, but I think it might have been better just to have two prairie dog scenes. The one in the beginning of the Nevada sequence, and the one at the end of the Nevada sequence. It's like a preface and a bookend.
It's almost bizarre to see the rugged old look of Indy's clothing against the pristine new look of the 1950s suburb, but this scene is supposed to be bizarre.
I love the surreal comedy in this scene. I find the mannequins hilarious, especially this one.
Watching them melt and burn is both funny and terrifying.
As the numbers count down, Indy becomes more and more desperate. I find it interesting that there is no music at all in the entire scene. The silence adds an extra layer of dread.
I don't have a problem with the fridge itself. I find it funny that they kept that idea from the early scripts. But I thought that steps could have been taken to lower the absurdity. Having the fridge fly in the exact same direction as the car is a little silly. And then to make it bounce around like crazy was a little too much. It might have been better to have the fridge coast along the ground or make it land in a soft sand pit or something.
The Nevada sequence ends with iconic imagery. John Williams music returns to remind us that this is a different time period for Indy, one which deals with "the destroyer of worlds". The whole "Communists + Atomic Bombs + Aliens + Paranoia + 1950s B movies" idea is starting to make sense.