Critical response Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom received mixed reviews upon its release, On
Metacritic the film has a weighted average score of 57 out of 100, based on 14 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.
Roger Ebert gave the film a perfect four-star rating, calling it "one of the greatest Bruised Forearm Movies ever made. You know what a Bruised Forearm Movie is. That's the kind of movie where your date is always grabbing your forearm in a viselike grip, as unbearable excitement unfolds on the screen...
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom makes no apologies for being exactly what it is: Exhilarating, manic, wildly imaginative escapism ... This is the most cheerfully exciting, bizarre, goofy, romantic adventure movie since
Raiders, and it is high praise to say that it's not so much a sequel as an equal... You stagger out with a silly grin."
Vincent Canby felt the film was "too shapeless to be the fun that
Raiders is, but shape may be beside the point. Old-time, 15-part
movie serials didn't have shape. They just went on and on and on, which is what
Temple of Doom does with humor and technical invention."
Neal Gabler commented that "I think in some ways,
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was better than
Raiders of the Lost Ark. In some ways it was less. In sum total, I'd have to say I enjoyed it more. That doesn't mean it's better necessarily, but I got more enjoyment out of it." John Nubbin reviewed
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom for
Different Worlds magazine and stated that "Spielberg, for better or worse, has gone past the parameters of the first film, doing more with the period he is recreating and the type of film and story he is honoring." Colin Covert of the
Star Tribune called the film "sillier, darkly violent and a bit dumbed down, but still great fun."
Pauline Kael preferred it to
Raiders, writing: "The subject of a movie can be momentum. It has often been the true—even if not fully acknowledged—subject of movies. In
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, it's not just acknowledged, it's gloried in...The whole movie is a shoot-the-chutes, and toward the end, when the heroic trio, having found the sacred stone and freed the stolen children from the maharajah's mines, are trying to escape in a tiny mine car, and a shift in camera angles places us with them on a literal rollercoaster ride, the audience laughs in recognition that that's what we've been on all along...The movie relates to Americans' love of getting in the car and just taking off—it's a breeze."
Dave Kehr stated "The film betrays no human impulse higher than that of a ten-year-old boy trying to gross out his baby sister by dangling a dead worm in her face." Ralph Novak of
People complained "The ads that say 'this film may be too intense for younger children' are fraudulent. No parent should allow a young child to see this traumatizing movie; it would be a cinematic form of
child abuse. Even Harrison Ford is required to slap Quan and abuse Capshaw. There are no heroes connected with the film, only two villains; their names are Steven Spielberg and George Lucas."
The Observer described it as "a thin, arch, graceless affair."
The Guardian summarized it as "a two-hour series of none too carefully linked chase sequences ... sitting on the edge of your seat gives you a sore bum but also a numb brain."
Colin Greenland reviewed the film for
Imagine magazine, and stated that "
Raiders had the wit and lightness of touch not to take itself too seriously.
Temple starts well, but promptly loses itself in clamorous self-importance. I couldn't care less if it outgrosses
Raiders. It grossed me out." In 2014,
Time Out polled several film critics, directors, actors, and stunt actors to list their top action films.
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was listed at 71st place on this list. Director
Quentin Tarantino stated that
Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is his favorite of the series, as well as Spielberg's second-best film behind
Jaws (1975)
. "[Spielberg] pushes the envelope, he creates PG-13, a movie so badass it created a new level in the MPAA," further adding "there is a comedy aspect as gruesome as the cinema is; there is an ultimate comedy aspect that's just not quite there as much in the first one."
Reception from the cast and crew The character Willie Scott has often been criticized for its shrillness, with Capshaw calling Willie "not much more than a dumb screaming blonde," A group of 30-50 people in
Seattle, Washington, appeared in the local newspapers when they protested the film for depicting Indians as either helpless or evil. The depiction of
Indian cuisine was heavily criticized, as dishes such as baby snakes, eyeball soup, beetles, and chilled monkey brains are not Indian foods. Professor Yvette Rosser wrote that "[it] seems to have been taken as a valid portrayal of India by many teachers, since a large number of students surveyed complained that teachers referred to the eating of monkey brains." Another heavily criticized aspect was the film's
white savior narrative, with Indiana being depicted as a great white hero upon landing in a remote Indian village, with the villagers unable to help themselves. Roshan Seth, who played Chattar Lal, mentioned that the banquet scene was a joke that went wrong, saying, "Steven intended it as a joke, the joke being that Indians were so smart that they knew all Westerners think that Indians eat cockroaches, so they served them what they expected. The joke was too subtle for that film."
PG rating Many parents who took their children to see the film complained that some sequences in the film were too violent for its PG rating, particularly sequences involving human sacrifice and children being flogged. Spielberg had initially defended the violence, stating "the picture is not called
Temple of Roses, it is called
Temple of Doom. There are parts of this film that are too intense for younger children, but this is a fantasy adventure. It is the kind of violence that does not really happen and cannot be perpetuated by people leaving the cinema and performing those tricks on their friends at home." In response to some of the more violent sequences in the film, and with similar complaints about
Gremlins (which released two weeks later), Spielberg suggested that the
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) alter its
rating system by introducing an intermediary between the PG and R ratings. The MPAA concurred, and a new
PG-13 rating was introduced two months after the film's release. The United Kingdom followed suit five years later, with the
BBFC introducing the 12 rating and
Batman (1989) being the first film to receive it.
Temple of Doom was itself re-rated 12, uncut, in 2012. ==Accolades==