I was wrong

I know, I know, it doesn't happen very often ... but in retrospect, I was wrong about Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. It's taken me a while to admit it, but on my last trip through the movie, I came to realize that yes, it's a pretty good film.

Of course, it has its terrible moments. A few too many pathetic screams from Kate Capshaw, too many shots of her dumping perfume on the elephant, etc. I'm tempted to call them Lucas moments, but let's be honest: Spielberg wrote the Goonies, which came out a year later, and it's just as juvenile as the stupider moments in Temple of Doom.

So what's good about it? For one thing, the aforementioned Ms. Capshaw. She's not just hot ... she's eighties hot. Don't know what I'm talking about? Here's the classic example. Was Willie Scott a letdown from Marion Ravenwood? Sure, but since the second film was set before the first one, it makes sense.

Secondly, not chronologically of course, is the opening sequence, which is a lot of fun ... the "Anything Goes" song, the pre-Dennis Quaid in DOA poison stagger, the tuxedos. What a great scene! From A to Z, from "Anything ... " through zeppelin if you will, it's pretty great.

Thirdly and most importantly is that even more than in the third movie with its fairly clumsy "origin of" backstory, it's in the second film that we see some actual character development. Jones begins by trading an artifact for a big diamond and talking only of "fortune and glory," but he ends up saving a bunch of kids and leaving emptyhanded. See ... he learns and grows.

Never mind that in the third movie we see that he was already altruistic about artifacts even as a lad.

Another note about DOA: it's the film that made me want to be an English professor (okay, one of the films) ... and Meg Ryan might have been eighties cute, but never quite eighties hot. You might think I'm working my way around to a vicious comment about her current appearance, but honestly, I'm not going to stoop ... as the duke says, I choose never to stoop.

Unnecessarily.