SOURCE: Kauffmann, Stanley. “The Trail of the Grail.” New Republic 200, no. 25 (19 June 1989): 28-30.

In the following review, Kauffmann offers a positive assessment of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, arguing that the majority of Spielberg's films function as “prepubescent male” fantasies.

Reviewing an Indiana Jones film is almost like reviewing a tornado or a flood. It comes on less like a construct than like a force of nature—human nature, in this case, which seems to will the film onto the screen independently of those who made it.

This is obviously a tribute to the people who originated IJ and who in a sense have served as guides for audience impulse. Two others, Menno Meyjes and Jeffrey Boam, are credited with collaboration on the latest IJ story and with the screenplay, which credit I'm sure they deserve; but clearly this film, like the IJ films before it, attests...