Stahp it. I said worst of the trilogy. I didn't say it sucked. How can you possibly say it's better than Raiders or, the absolute best, Last Crusade.
I rate the Indiana Jones trilogy in the order they came out. I don't do this with Star Wars trilogy.
Best one is Raiders, Second is Temple of Doom, Third is Last Crusade.
My reasoning. One is the best, it creates tropes for the entire IP. That is to say, it does rely upon standard ones, particularly since Spielberg and Lucas were inspired by Saturday Morning Serials and the like, however, Indy's fear of Snakes, being a "Clark Kent" Professor by day and a Super Action hero everywhere else. So on. So forth. Pay attention, now. It has high adventure, intrigue, drama, supernatural tied to biblical stories and is funny. It's the standard. You cannot NOT rank it as number 1 in this entire IP.
Temple of Doom took all of that and ramped it up to 11. It happened in the best decade for action movies, that being the 80's and really put Indiana on top as an action hero with comrades like Rambo, yet still nerdy enough to ferret out treasure and mystery of yore. He was awesome because he is akin to a Super Scientist of the 50's UFO and Aliens movies, where he was the smartest person in the room and the most capable of saving everyone at the same time. Temple also changed the mood of the film from Raiders, which was more of an adventure and classically told story from Hollywood to the bombastic and crazy scenarios he got up to in Temple of Doom.
It didn't rely upon Nazi's, yet it does have a well-defined and spooky death-cult of Kali as his antagonist. Short Round did not suck. He was captured and he helped out in a way that wasn't ridiculous and added honest comedy and drama which is hard when you have child actors and all of this was done as a family movie, not just targeted to kids. <-- See Goonies as well, it fits.
Last Crusade is great. Just because I put it last doesn't mean it isn't Great. It is Indiana Jones and part of the original trilogy. The best thing about that movie was River Phoenix and we were robbed that Lucas and Spielberg didn't fast track a movie with him doing a how Indiana really became Indiana. Plus it was during the end of the Wild West era. A lot of meat was left on the bone for Indiana's story about growing up in the same era that Red Dead Redemption is in. It would have been fantastic and we ALL KNOW IT. Fuckin' Westerns man, they need not go the way of the Buffalo. <-- See Logan for my point on what that means in the modern era.
You don't have to like it, but that is the peak ranking for the Indiana Jones movies.