 Roger Ebert gave the film a perfect four star rating , calling it " 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 . It 's quite an experience . " 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 . " Colin Covert of the Star Tribune called the film " sillier , darkly violent and a bit dumbed down , but still great fun . " Pauline Kael , writing in The New Yorker , claimed it was " one of the most sheerly pleasurable physical comedies ever made . " Halliwell 's Film Guide described the film as a " slow @-@ starting adventure romp with much ingenuity and too much brutality and horror . " 
