Region: 1
Video: Enhanced Widescreen Letterbox for 16x9 TV
Audio: Dolby Digital w/ sub-woofer channel
  Dolby Digital w/ 4 channels of sound from a 2-channel stereo mix.
Language: English, French, Spanish
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
Weight factor: 1 item(s)

Plot Synopsis

The second of the George Lucas/Steven Spielberg Indiana Jones epics is set a year or so before the events in Raiders of the Lost Ark (1984). After a brief brouhaha involving a precious vial and a wild ride down a raging Himalyan river, Indy (Harrison Ford) gets down to the problem at hand: retrieving a precious gem and several kidnapped young boys on behalf of a remote East Indian village. His companions this time around include a dimbulbed, easily frightened nightclub chanteuse (Kate Capshaw), and a feisty 12-year-old kid named Short Round (Quan Ke Huy). Throughout, the plot takes second place to the thrills, which include a harrowing rollercoaster ride in an abandoned mineshaft and Indy's rescue of the heroine from a ritual sacrifice. There are also a couple of cute references to Raiders of the Lost Ark, notably a funny variation of Indy's shooting of the Sherpa warrior. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Editorial Reviews:

Bigger, busier, louder, and far less satisfying than Raiders of the Lost Ark, this first sequel (or, chronologically speaking, prequel) starts with a bang but then indulges in some serious miscalculations. After saddling Harrison Ford with a whiny love interest (Kate Capshaw) and a cloying young sidekick, the film then plunges them all into a grim, subterranean adventure with few of the globe-trotting thrills of the original. The movie, somewhat understandably, stirred controversy at the time of its release for its violence, gross-out gags, and general darkness. While the furor was exaggerated, all those grim deaths and enslaved children do kind of put a damper on the fun. Even so, a Spielberg-directed adventure can only plunge so far, and the director delivers the goods in numerous set pieces, though the series itself did not recover until 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. ~ Keith Phipps, All Movie Guide