Indiana Jones - Raiders Of The Lost Ark - Special Edition [1981]

See Larger Image	List Price: £9.99 Our Price: £8.98 Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Manufacturer: Paramount Home Entertainment Starring: Harrison Ford, Frank Marshall, George Harris, Karen Allen, Paul Freeman Directed By: Steven Spielberg Average Customer Rating:
Audience Rating: Parental Guidance Binding: DVD EAN: 5014437954336 Format: PAL Label: Paramount Home Entertainment Manufacturer: Paramount Home Entertainment Number Of Items: 1 Publisher: Paramount Home Entertainment Region Code: 2 Release Date: 2008-05-12 Running Time: 110 Studio: Paramount Home Entertainment Theatrical Release Date: 1981
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Editorial Reviews: Steven Spielberg and George Lucas's 1981 resurrection of the Saturday-matinee adventure genre was deservedly popular, and kicked off a successful trilogy. Set in 1936, this first feature introduces Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, an archaeologist and adventurer whose quests for rare antiquities frequently find him running from one menace or another. Raiders Of The Lost Ark finds Dr. Jones in the middle of a Nazi plot to use the mysterious powers of the Ark of the Covenant to win the war. Karen Allen plays the love interest with an old-fashioned "man's woman" appeal (she can drink anybody under the table and is free with her fists). The constant, cliffhanger appeal of the movie is great fun--one is always wondering how Indy will get out of one scrape after another--and Ford's career got a big boost with his self-effacing but masculine portrayal of the hero. --Tom Keogh
Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: STEVEN SPIELBERG AT HIS BEST Comment: Indiana Jones - Raiders Of The Lost Ark - Special Edition [1981] Steven Spielberg at HIS BEST. Another movie from my Dad's Collection. The action never stops and there's a carefully calculated high-point every 15 minutes at least. The effects are well co-ordinated, and the film is easily Spielberg's most genuinely riveting. The film is produced by George Lucas. Harrison Ford, discovered by Lucas, for STAR WARS, plays the title character, who is BOGART, FLASH GORDON and HAN SOLO rolled into one. Customer Rating: Summary: Strap Yourselves into Your Seat Boys and Girls... Comment: You are in for the ride of your life! If you love adventure, romance, murder, mystery and intrigue this movie is for you. It has it all. The expectations were high when George Lucas and Steven Spielberg got together to make this movie. They set the bar a couple of notches higher with this film. What boy or man hasn't dreamed of finding lost treasure? And what girl or woman hasn't dreamed of a dark mysterious man who literally sweeps her off her feet and takes her for an adventure she never forgets. From the opening scene where Indiana Jones finds a small gold statue and almost gets crushed by a giant bolder to finding of the lost arc of the covenant we follow our hero and his romantic interest through caves, tombs and wild car chases that rival any movie ever done. Harrison Ford is exceptional as the hero who thrives on adventure. His quick mind and Critical Thinking skills get him out of many a tight situation throughout the movie. A boy at heart with the knowledge as deep as the tombs he explores. One minute he is teaching a class in archeology. The next minute he is being dragged under a truck in the desert. As he says in one telling line to Marion "It's not the years, it's the miles!" Karen Allen plays the heroine Marion with the right mix of spunk, sexiness and the girl next door look that men desire. She can take care of herself in tough situation, but has a kind and vulnerable side as well. Her unwilling attraction to our hero provides the sparks for romance and arguments that make the movie just plain fun! Overall this is the "Gold Standard" for adventure movies! The Re-Discovery of Common Sense: A Guide To: The Lost Art of Critical Thinking Customer Rating: Summary: Deserves it's place in history. Comment: An absolutely faultless film from start to finish. I must have seen it over a hundred times and it's still as thrilling to me today as it was when I first saw it aged 10. A classic movie to stick on after Christmas dinner. Great casting, superb plot devices, wonderful music, it's all here. Hard for me to be subjective about this film really. I just adore everything about it. Customer Rating: Summary: a great central character makes a great action adventure Comment: Harrison Ford (Star Wars) stars as Indiana Jones, an archaeologist who is sent on a mission to find the Ark of the Covenant. Coming off the epic Star wars trilogy, Harrison Ford and George Lucas teamed up with Steven Spielberg to create an adventure masterpiece in this Oscar winning action adventure. Ford leads the way as Jones, a cocky and intelligent man who uses rough, dangerous and intriguing techniques to get what he wants and through Ford's acting, do we see a great character and a strong male icon. Now, 27 years on, the icon with hat and whip are famous, as is many scenes, including probably one of the most exciting beginnings ever filmed when Indy goes into a temple and is chased by that boulder, possibly the best action sequence and memorable part of the series. The writing by Lucas and direction by Spielberg also make the character and the entire film enjoyable and exciting all the way through in a consistent and tense plot. Lucas' attention to detail about the Ark is good and Spielberg's close and fast direction conforms brilliantly to the genre. I wasn't around when the film was released but can understand by research that it was a landmark at the time of release, a completely knew idea when effects and action were really coming into full effect, like Star Wars brought the Sci-Fi genre out, and this film was a real niche in the adventure genre, and still remains to be today with Indy 4 currently being released and hundreds of thousands seeing it in its opening week. The plot is consistent with great action scenes, suspense and mystery around every corner and intriguing characters and relationships being built. There perhaps could have been a bit more depth to some of the characters but otherwise it is a truly brilliant action adventure and a landmark in the adventure genre. 8.5/10 Customer Rating: Summary: THE PERFECT MOVIE... Comment: Where does one start with this 1981 CLASSIC!?? Quite simply the BEST Action/Adventure movie of ALL time! Definiteley the best of all the 4 movies, followed by The Temple Of Doom & a tie between The Last Crusade & newbie, Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull. Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones is simply the most iconic & accessible of cinema's great heroes, easier for the everyman to relate to than say, James Bond. A reluctant hero who just gets it done! There's also a great ensemble of supporting characters. Raiders, to these eyes, still looks the biggest budgeted out of the four, with its Egyptian locations, lavish underground sets, fantastic stunts (NO CGI!) and AMAZING visual effects. The cinematography is perfect and the score by John Williams is one of his greatest - Love the music when Indy is in the hidden map room & the Staff Of Ra reveals the whereabouts of the Ark Of The Covenant. Spellbinding! Raiders also has the perfect blend of light & shade , balancing the tension with the humour superbly (unlike the over comedic Last Crusade). It's a fairly violent movie in places; people are impaled with spikes, graphically shot in the head, disintegrated in propeller blades & at the movie's wonderfully supernatural finale, faces melt & heads explode! There's also lots of hard & bloody fist fights which are some of the best choreographed I have ever seen - enhanced by those fantastically loud, 'wet leather' sound FX (ala Rocky 3) as every punch lands! The aforementioned, supernatural climax is easily the most spectacular, even horrifying of the series, with traditional FX techniques that make a mockery of todays, overly CG indulgent films. Cloud tanks, traditional matte paintings, miniatures & prosthetic make up techniques all excel in the movie & let's not forget the amazing array of massive explosions, bullet impacts, and firearms action courtesy of a great mechanical effects team! All this mayhem comes together through some of the finest ever editing & of course, Steven Spielberg's masterly direction! This guy not only raised the bar for Action cinema but set a standard that for this type of film has never been bettered (forget junk like The Matrix trilogy!). The opening 15 minutes as Indiana Jones battles a succession of deadly, archaeological boobytraps is now legendary & sets the often dark tone that follows. It is quite simply THE perfect movie - if I'm nitpicking I can fault only one very minor thing - the scene where the truck flips over after Indy has shot the driver; you can see the pole on the vehicle's underside used to flip it - Couldn't this have been digitally erased for the DVD?? It still doesn't spoil a great action scene however - so well edited!! Also this movie has the best villains in it's Nazis, played with a straight face & sense of menace, again unlike The Last Crusade where the Nazi Party were depicted as more of a pantomime style enemy. And The Ark Of The Covenant in it's sense of mystery & ultimateley, it's apocalyptic power over Evil is still a better central plot device than sacred stones or alien skulls! If you love action with a little bit of fantasy, great characters, a darned good plot & yearn for the days when truck chases were done without mega pixels, then this is the picture for you! SIX STARS OUT OF FIVE. More Reviews