INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE

This is a rare thing: a mainstream blockbuster that treats the name of Jesus Christ, the Holy Grail, and faith itself with real reverence — and does it inside a rollicking, globe-hopping adventure that never stops moving. The father-son story between Indy and Dr. Jones is the film's beating heart, and the scene where Indy is slapped for blasphemy and told plainly "that's for blasphemy" is worth the price of admission by itself.

It earns its caution, though. There's frightening violence throughout — chases, explosions, a man reduced to dust, boys menaced by snakes — plus a handful of profanities, some crude moments, and an implied sexual relationship between Indy and another character. None of it is graphic, but younger children will find parts of it unsettling.

For older kids and adults, this is an easy yes — a smart, funny, exciting adventure that honors God rather than mocking Him. One sentence: gather the older kids and dads, and enjoy this one together.

Years before we meet him as a grown archaeologist, young Indy watches his father, Dr. Henry Jones, become consumed by a lifelong obsession: finding the Holy Grail, the cup Christ used at the Last Supper. Years later, a wealthy stranger hires Indy to pick up that same search — but Indy doesn't yet know the man is working for Hitler's Nazi regime, or that the Nazis are already holding his father captive. The hunt for the Grail is about to become a hunt for family.

Four stars, and the film earns every one. Coming after the noticeably darker TEMPLE OF DOOM, THE LAST CRUSADE returns to the winning formula of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK — nonstop action, cliff-hanging set pieces, globe-trotting locations, and light humor that never lets the pace sag. Frame by frame, it's vastly entertaining.

What lifts it further is Sean Connery, whose warmth as Indy's father gives the whole adventure a second, more personal engine: this isn't just a treasure hunt, it's a son learning to know his father. The bond between them — affectionate, funny, honest about their differences — is the film's real achievement, and it makes the ending land emotionally as well as spectacularly.

This film exalts something Hollywood rarely bothers with: reverence. It speaks often and directly of God, of Jesus Christ, of the Grail, and of faith — and it treats all of it as worth respecting rather than mocking. The moment Indy misuses Christ's name and his father slaps him for blasphemy is not incidental; it's the moral center of the picture, and it's genuinely rare to see a major studio film side so plainly with the Third Commandment. The story also honors the Fifth Commandment, picturing a son who risks everything to save the father he doesn't always understand.

Casting Sean Connery as Indy's father is a shrewd bit of moviemaking craft. The Indiana Jones films were built, in part, as a loving echo of the Bond pictures that made Connery a star, and putting him in the role of the wise, weathered father gives the franchise a fitting sense of closing a circle — an uplifting choice rather than a distracting one.

The theology has real holes — this is an adventure film, not a catechism, and it treats the Grail more as a plot engine than a doctrine. But the film's instinct is right: it points past artifacts and power toward something greater. As Indy's own quest suggests, every road we build toward the sacred ultimately depends on the one road God built toward us: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6).

Few blockbusters this big have ever been this unashamed about honoring God, faith, and Jesus Christ by name — and fewer still pair that reverence with an adventure this purely fun. Caution the younger kids about the scares and language, then let everyone else enjoy it. Worth the trip — ages 12 and up.