"Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" at the AFI Silver (Aug. 15 - 17)

August 15, 10:22 AMClassic TV ExaminerDoug Krentzlin

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The AFI Silver continues its Steven Spielberg Retrospective with “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” (1984), the second entry in the popular franchise created by George Lucas and directed by Spielberg. (Showtimes are Friday, Aug. 15, at 7 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 16, at 7:20 p.m. and Sunday, Aug. 17, at 1 p.m. For tickets, call 301-495-6720 or visit www.afi.com/silver).

In this prequel to “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” swashbuckling archeologist Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) finds himself in 1935 India battling a Kali-worshipping cult who has enslaved local children to work in their mines.

Until “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” came out this summer, “Temple of Doom” was generally considered to be the weakest of the series because, among other things, it was “too dark.” (The PG-13 rating was created specifically in response to the backlash against the film’s violence.)

Still, there are others (myself included) who consider “Temple of Doom” to be the best of Indy’s adventures. Admittedly, the characters of Short Round (Ke Huy Quan) and Willie Scott (Kate Capshaw) are pretty hard to take, but there are plenty of elements on the plus side of the ledger.

Among them are the opening shoot-out in a Hong Kong night club, the escape from a disabled plane using an inflatable life raft in lieu of parachutes, the roller coaster style chase through the mines and the climatic duel-to-the-death on a rope bridge suspended 100 feet above a gorge.

And then there’s my nomination for the greatest opening credits sequence ever: Capshaw singing Cole Porter’s “Anything Goes” in Mandarin accompanied by a line of Chinese chorus girls.