Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)

Number two, in which Indy tries to recover magical stones in East India, is a big dopey comicbook adventure with poor gender and race politics but it remains my favourite, well, perhaps second favourite of the Indiana Jones movies on account of its big opening Shanghai dance number, its hilarious banquet scene, its comedy routine involving jungle animals, the lengthy carry-on involving Indy getting trapped with Shorty in a spikey booby trap, the minecart rollercoaster ride that I've dreamed of going on since I was a kid, and of course the climactic collapsing rope bridge.

★★★★☆

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Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008)

Harrison Ford's performance is laboured and it is like no-one dares let him utter more than three consecutive words for fear he'll betray his inability to reprise his famous role, but with Cate Blanchett hamming it up as a Soviet agent villain and with a globe-trotting plot involving the usual maps and clues and quicksand and temples, this fourth Indy movie is enjoyable nostalgia albeit a cheesy, slow-witted adventure.

★★★☆☆

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Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)

The sought-after archeological wonder in number three is the Holy Grail but Indy's biggest challenge isn't death-defying derring-do as he races the Nazis to decipher biblical clues and decode Knights Templar maps but his father, the doddering academic Dr Jones Snr played hilariously by Sean Connery.

★★★★☆

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