Similar weirdness watching this in 2023 as for the first film, portrayal of women1 (even worse than in Raiders of the Lost Ark???) and of non-American characters (especially Chinese and Indian extras).

Somehow this still won an Oscar (best visual effects, funny in retrospect when seeing the plane explode with oh-so-obvious CGI, but this was 1984 so fair enough). I still liked watching it for its entertainment value and the shameless dark/gory plot (and because we have to, before film 5 comes out); but same as with the first movie, it's hard to just enjoy and ignore the bits that didn't age well: they're all over the film.

4/10

Footnotes

  1. interestingly Kate Capshaw reacted to some criticism of her character: "The thing that surprised me the most was that the critics, women critics in particular, were very critical of Willie Scott, as if we were making a political statement and I was doing nothing for my sisters. I found it odd that it was an action-adventure film and we were meant to be doing message work." Is this the difference between 1984 and 2023 audiences? These days this kind of thing would just not work, even if it were justified as "just entertainment"