The words Indiana Jones and “boring” aren’t often used together — but boring is exactly how Quentin Tarantino describes Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, the 1989 film that famously paired Harrison Ford with Sean Connery as the bullwhippin’ archaeologist’s dad, Henry Jones Sr.
“I like Crystal Skull more than the Sean Connery one,” Tarantino said in an August 2022 episode of the ReelBlend podcast, recorded in his home screening room. “I don’t like the Sean Connery one. I don’t like the Sean Connery one at all. … That’s such a boring one. It’s boring. And he’s not an interesting character. The joke is made immediately. It’s like Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot.”
(Stop! Or My Mom Will Shoot, of course, is a 1992 buddy-cop movie starring Sylvester Stallone and Estelle Getty.)
The Pulp Fiction director’s Indy opinion isn’t the consensus one: On Rotten Tomatoes, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade is the second-highest ranked Jones film after the obvious best, Raiders of the Last Ark. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is the lowest rated. But when has Tarantino ever gone with the consensus choice?
Making a Movie? Moviemaker Production Services Can Double Your Budget
1989’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade finds Dr. Jones (whose name is revealed to be Henry Jr.) joining his father in a quest for the Holy Grail. Along the way they fight Nazis, bicker, and discover that they are not only father and son but have also had relations with the same lady. (Blech.)
Tarantino says the best Indiana Jones movie — and best Steven Spielberg movie of all, except for Jaws — is the 1984 Raiders prequel Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
“My favorite Spielberg movie — with Jaws carved out on its own Mount Rushmore, alright? — is Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom,” Tarantino says.
He noted that in Temple of Doom, Spielberg “pushes the envelope and creates PG-13! The movie was so fucking badass it created a new rating in the MPAA, something Brian De Palma’s never been able to do as much as he’s tried!”
That’s true about Temple of Doom inspiring the PG-13 rating: Details are here.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny Release Date
The next film in the Indiana Jones series, coming June 30, features a now 80-year-old Harrison Ford re-donning the fedora. Ford v. Ferrari director James Mangold is directing Indy 5, which is better known as Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
The film will the first film in the Indiana Jones series that will not to be helmed by Spielberg, though Spielberg is still very much on board as an executive producer.
The other actors include Fleabag creator Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelsen, Antonio Banderas and Boyd Holbrook.
In a summer 2022 interview with Men’s Health, Holbrook said he’s seen some of the film, and promised it will be “badass.”
“I can assure you that it’s going to be badass,” he said. “I got to see like half an hour of it when I went to L.A., and I saw Jim. You know, just look at his work: Ford v Ferrari, it’s gonna be fast, it’s gonna be badass, and it’s gonna have heart. All of his films have this emotional beat in them, but we’ve got this grand scale of Indiana Jones.”
Holbrook added: “And Harrison is the best type of crazy you can get.”
The Next and Final Quentin Tarantino Film
Tarantino’s next film, meanwhile, will be is tenth and last. Called The Movie Critic, it is already one of the most hotly anticipated movies of this century — even though we know next to nothing about it.
Tarantino has said only that the script is finished, that it should begin shooting this year, and that it is not about Pauline Kael, despite the internet speculation that he would tell a story about the film critic he has long adored.
Main image: Harrison Ford and Sean Connery in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, a movie Quentin Tarantino considers “boring”
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