Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is the 1984 prequel to the fantastic Raiders of the Lost Ark. It starred Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, Kate Capshaw as Wilhelmina "Willie" Scott, Ke Huy Quan as Short Round. It was directed by Steven Spielberg and written by George Lucas, Gloria Katz and William Huyck.

Where Raiders had a basic, loose story which still maintained some coherency, all such pretenses have been tossed out of the window in Temple of Doom. The audience are thrown right into the action with Indiana Jones fighting Hong Kong henchmen only minutes into the movie, saved by his comic relief/cute child sidekick Short Round only to soon thereafter crash a plane into the the Himalayas. Along for the trip is also the night club singer Willie, who immediately establishes her role in the movie as a stupid, screaming, whining, cajoling female. Indiana & Co go on to eat chilled monkey brains and bugs (apparantly the staple diet of all well-off Indians), reveal dangerous thuggee cults and rescue thousands of children held prisoner by said thuggee cult.

Had it not been for the words "Indiana Jones" in the movie title, Temple of Doom could have been an uninteresting, forgotten 1980s adventure movie. It certainly displays all the characteristics of the worst 1980s movies - one-dimensional villains, gross-out scenes with bugs, uninspired acting from almost everyone in the movie(Harrison Ford being the most notable exception) and thousands of enslaved children(much like in another inferior sequel of the same period, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome). As if these flaws were not enough, Temple of Doom breaks cleanly with Raiders in it's portrayal of the female protagonist. Whereas Marion in Raiders more than held her own in bar fights as well as in drinking contests, Willie spends most of her time in the movie screaming, getting kidnapped, or causing trouble for Indy by activating hidden traps. This difference becomes even more pronounced when Elsa in Last Crusade is brought into the picture; yet another woman who displays proof of great intelligence and self-reliance.

In short, Temple of Doom is a pointless, stereotypical movie with few redeeming qualities. Unfortunately, you might feel the need to watch it simply because Indiana Jones is in it. A good idea might be to divert this need into watching(or playing in the case of computer games) any other part of the huge amount of Indy material out there. This movie is not worth your time.