MPAA Rating: PG
Recommended for ages 13 and up.
Run Time: 115 minutes
Quick Take: Good, old-fashioned action-adventure will become an instant favorite for older kids.
Good If You Liked: Old-fashioned film serials of 1930s and 1940s, "The Mummy" films
Creature Features: Indy encounters many mummified skeletons -- including one with a snake slithering out of its mouth -- and ghostly spirits during the ark-opening climax.
Risqué Business: A bruised and exhausted Indy falls asleep before the healing kisses from Marion (Karen Allen) lead to anything else.
Scares and Suspense: : Though cartoonish by today's special-effects standards, the melting of the villains' faces after the ark is opened will serve as prime fodder for nightmares.
Other Possible Concerns: "Raiders" came out before the PG-13 era (the 1984 sequel would be instrumental in the creation of that category), so there is a lot of surprisingly casual violence for a PG film.
Rewatch Value: Endless. An adventure classic that hops from one sublime set piece to the next – with clever, quotable dialogue in between – "Raiders of the Lost Ark" deserves a spot on your DVD shelf.
DVD Special Features: The 2008 Special Edition DVD includes an introduction by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, a tribute to the trilogy, a behind-the-scenes look at the "melting face" special effect, galleries, storyboards, and more.
Related features:
For a good decade, from 1981 on, you would have been hard-pressed to find a movie-loving boy who did not want to be Indiana Jones (or a movie-loving girl who did not want to be Marion Ravenwood, his feisty romantic sparring partner).
Steven Spielberg's "Raiders of the Lost Ark," an action-adventure film that brings to mind original family classics such as "The Adventures of Robin Hood," introduced the world to Jones, the whip-wielding, wisecracking archeologist immortalized by Harrison Ford.
Like Ford, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is goofy and adolescent in a good way. Though it has serious, adult concerns – Nazis, the Biblical Ark of the Covenant – the movie is first and foremost the sort of rollicking adventure a gaggle of innocent kids might dream up in their backyard on a summer afternoon.
That is, if those kids had the inventive mind and master staging techniques of Spielberg and producer George Lucas.
The pair aimed to make an homage to the movie serials of their youth -- action yarns that would spool out in weekly installments before the feature film -- and they've done a masterful job of modernizing the genre without lampooning it.
"Raiders of the Lost Ark" looks delightfully archaic, thanks to the silhouetted lighting scheme and all that well-worn leather. Yet the movie's pacing is thoroughly contemporary, even by today's standards. Hurtling from one clever predicament to the next -- during one day, Indy escapes from a buried tomb, boxes a hulking airplane mechanic and hijacks a Nazi motorcade before getting a single night's rest -- "Raiders" was (and remains still) one of the first feature-length films to literally leave you breathless.
Kids Will Love:
The numerous, booby-trapped vaults that Indy must survive will delight every kid who ever tried to build similar forts (I couldn't have been the only boy to recreate some of these scenes step for step).
Parents Will Love:
Ford is the main appeal to dads and (perhaps especially) moms. He's in his charming prime here – smart enough to have fun with the material while never letting loose with a full wink.
