Holy Shit!
Full Disclosure: I went into this with the lowest of expectations, and yet, somehow…
I’ve been closely following any and all Indiana Jones news going back to the prospective Indiana Jones sequel scripts that were quietly making their rounds in the 90’s. When this last-ditch effort FINALLY went into production a couple years ago, I was riveted to whatever info I could cast my gaze upon, despite a natural skepticism tagging along, prompted by thoughts of a certain leading man’s rather advanced age, and the fact that the Beard himself, Steven Spielberg, bowed out of directing, after having helmed every other one to, largely, great success. Little by little, tidbits began leaking out. And little by little…my fears grew.
Let’s go back a little bit here. I’m part of a generation who are now in their late 30’s / 40’s +, who grew up in that wondrous time that was the 1980’s (and up to about the mid-90’s, if I’m honest) when Hollywood blockbusters were something special, worthy of excitement, and the genre possibilities were becoming endless, thanks to the advances in filmmaking techniques and equipment. Two of the reigning masters of the day were George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, and I have greedily devoured everything in their filmographies, both as a team and as independent directors over the years.
As a team, they created one of my absolute favorite action movie heroes – ‘Dr. Henry Walton ‘Indiana’ Jones Jr.’, as played by the man born to play this role, ‘Han Solo’ himself – Harrison Ford.
If I was forced to choose between the two primary franchises under the Lucasfilm banner, there would be no hesitation in me choosing Indiana Jones over Star Wars (though the early stuff I’m still a huge admirer of). Everything about the worlds, characters and stories of Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) works for me, even after multiple viewings going back literally decades. Some things work better than others, but taken as a complete trilogy, each entry has something cool and special to offer, while also giving us what felt like a tonally appropriate send-off to a tried n true product of the time, when the credits rolled on Indy and Co. galloping off into the literal sunset in that summer of 1989. The movies all feel like ‘Indiana Jones’, despite all three having distinctly unique flavours. To this day, Raiders still takes the crown as my favorite, but I’ll gladly watch the other two as well.
The same cannot be said of the way-too-late 2008 entry Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
It’s funny to think back and to realize that two of my biggest disappointments, as anticipated movies on the Big Screen go, belong to Lucasfilm. The first one came in 1999, with the release of George Lucas’ less-than-triumphant return to the franchise he arguably created, with Star Wars Episode One – The Phantom Menace. I remember walking out of the theatre muttering “What the fuck was THAT?!”, after having been fired up by the months-long advertising campaign and a generous heap of nostalgia. I then spent a few weeks trying to convince myself that it was, in fact, a good Star Wars movie.
It didn’t take.
The next one hit the fan in 2008, this time with the band getting back together (Spielberg, Lucas, Ford and Williams) to cobble together some half-baked idea of George Lucas’ for a new Indiana Jones adventure, most likely at a time when none of them were working so…why the hell not?
The end result is ‘why the hell not?’!
Spielberg is an absolute filmmaking genius, but even he has his stinkers. As it stands, my least favorite Spielberg film is easily, hands-down, 1979’s monstrous piece of shit, 1941. I fucking hate that movie! If I’m being totally honest, Crystal Skull occupies the next rung up on the ladder.
Despite having maestro Spielberg behind the camera, Ford out front, and the purse strings of pre-Disney Lucasfilm in the hands of writer / producer George Lucas, the end result was most decidedly underwhelming and I again was walking out of a theatre muttering the words “What the fuck was THAT?!”, as I tried for a few weeks to convince myself that this fourth Indy flick WAS actually good enough to rub shoulders with the original three, but like Phantom Menace…it didn’t take.
*A group of us even tried for a second viewing in the theatre as a means to convince ourselves that it really was an Indy movie, only to have the Cosmos rear up and the 35mm film-reel jam and melt onscreen (something I’d only ever seen happen in movies). It was hilarious and surreal, made all the more amusing by the fact that I actually worked for the film distribution company that had supplied THAT print to THAT theatre (which I’d personally delivered the week prior), and the manager knew I was in the audience. I wound up having to revise the print the following week in order to report back to Paramount Pictures (one of the distribution accounts I oversaw at the time). I ended up cutting out the melted segments (from the beginning of the 3rd Act) and distributing them to the friends who were there when it happened as souvenirs.
Hell, in preparation for the arrival of this highly questionable 5th movie, I actually threw Skull on for a rewatch, to see if somehow, maybe this time, the hidden amazingness that had eluded me for so long, would suddenly leap to the forefront and successfully join the ranks of the OG titles.
I made it to where the hazmat guys are scrubbing Indy’s balls post fridge nuke scene, before I realized ‘Nope, there’s no coming back from this one.’. It simply sucks, and I turned it off.
Now, because it is relevant, I will say that had Skull been made as a genuine Indiana Jones short film, encapsulating everything up to ‘Indy’ rising into frame as a surprisingly cool mushroom cloud dominates the background…groovy! I’m here for it! But everything else that follows the intro (I know the fridge bit is moronic but…), aside from a couple admittedly cool action scenes and visuals, sucks, and almost plays as a parody of what came before.
It didn’t go over well, despite making solid cash at the box office (thank gawd for nostalgia, huh boys?!) and is / was universally panned as being the shitty Indiana Jones movie that probably never should’ve been made. Hell, some of us are perfectly content viewing the series as a trilogy as we try to ignore the embarrassing failure (as an Indy flick) that Kingdom of the Crystal Skull undeniably is.
And that, as we naively thought, was that.
Then George sold Lucasfilm to the Walt Disney Corporation in 2012 for $4 billion and with it went the entire catalogue…including all rights to the Indiana Jones franchise.
First, the Mouse House went to work on Star Wars, and we all saw how THAT went. To date, and with the notable exceptions of Rogue One (2016) and the first two seasons of The Mandalorian, they have driven SW into the ground through oversaturation of the market, churning out shit product after shit product with seemingly very little regard for quality, much of it tainted by Lucasfilm head-honcho Kathleen Kennedy’s obnoxious brand of woke feminism being allowed to dictate the directions of these pieces of escapist entertainment.
*Before anyone decides to go off on some rage-fueled self-righteous SJW kick, let me just say that the core message of so-called ‘woke’, in which addressing certain discriminating factors in society that are traditionally demeaning or belittling to women or minorities, is a conversation that simply must happen, if we are to continue trying to push forward as a merging progressive society.
HOWEVER…The Message does NOT need to be defined by the emasculation of male hero characters long established in pop culture and the casting aside of certain concepts of masculinity, nor does it need to define every piece of pop culture / commercialism that hits the market, especially those pathetic attempts at ‘legacy’ sequels…just like Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
Goddamn…I’m not even sure where to begin with this one…
This movie-like product didn’t need to happen. But sadly, it did.
Now, because this flick left me with a serious case of the I Don’t Give a Fuck’s, there WILL be *SPOILERS* interwoven through the forthcoming written diarrhea.
You’ve been duly warned.
After the Lucasfilm signage morphs into a thick door lock (their attempt at copying the playfully interactive use of the Paramount mountain logo of the originals), we find ourselves at a besieged Nazi castle in 1944. As Allied bombs fall, we see the Krauts have captured themselves a prisoner. Lo and behold, that prisoner, adorned in a Nazi officer’s uniform, is a digitally de-aged ‘Indiana Jones’ (Harrison Ford, still sounding like 80 year old Harrison Ford, despite looking to be in his digital 40’s). Outside the castle, a book-wormish friend of Indy’s named ‘Basil Shaw’ (Toby Jones), while trying to get to ‘Indy’ and their initial goal (the Spear of Destiny), is also captured, held on a Nazi treasure train that’s trying to flee with a ton of priceless artifacts. ‘Indy’, set by be hanged in the upper reaches of the castle, escapes through the most unlikely and convenient set of circumstances (involving the comedic arrival of an aerial bomb and a delayed fuse) and a fight / chase scene on, through and under the speeding train ensues.
Along the way, Indy runs afoul of an ambitious Nazi scientist named ‘Voller’ (Mads Mikkelsen) and through a cartoonish (and likely lethal) coincidence, they get away, having traded out the Spear of Destiny, revealed as a fake, for a complex artifact resembling a set of gears that ‘Voller’ has also set his sights on. Just as our heroes emerge more or less triumphant, a group of shockingly bad CG bombers attack and again, ‘Indy’ and ‘Baz’ only barely escape (in a way that easily would’ve / should’ve killed them).
Fast forward to 1969. Hippies are in the streets. Vietnam war protests are on the TV. Man has walked on the moon. And our once plucky adventurer, ‘Indiana Jones’, is a broken-down, highly depressed senior citizen who is being forced into retirement from an unfulfilling teaching job in New York City, where he lives in a shitty little apartment, drinks himself to sleep in a Laz-E-Boy in front of the Boob Tube and rages at the kids who play their damn records too loud (no bullshit).
Along the way we find that he and ‘Marion’ (Karen Allen) did NOT live happily ever after, as per the end of Crystal Skull, as we see divorce papers. Added to which, their vine-swinging jackass-of-a-son ‘Mutt’ (Shia LeBoeuf) got himself perished after he willingly enlisted for Vietnam, just to piss ‘Indy’ off after a fight (ya sure showed the old man there, didn’t ya, you greaser douchebag!). Into this undignified shit-show of an existence comes a young woman named ‘Helena’ (Phoebe Waller Bridge), who turns out to be the daughter of ‘Indy’s war-time buddy ‘Basil’, who is also Indy’s estranged god-daughter.
In no time at all, it becomes apparent that she’d only searched out her over-the-hill god-father because he allegedly knew the supposed location of an ancient relic called Archimedes’ Dial, the trinket they switched for the fake spear back in ‘44. Turns out ‘Indy’ still has this thing, despite having promised ‘Baz’ that he would destroy it years ago. The first chance she gets, ‘Helena’ jacks the piece and literally leaves ‘Indy’ to die, as ‘Voller’ (who, and trust me on this, should’ve been reduced to a bloody splat alongside a railway in WW2 Europe) and his goons resurface, framing Indy for murder and sending him off in pursuit of ‘Helena’ and the mysterious relic.
Once again, I ask…where do I begin with this?
In no particular order, here’s what comes to mind:
De-aged Indy – When we got our first glimpse of Harrison Ford looking like classic ‘Indiana Jones’ from the time-period we love the most, it prompted a collective gasp and fueled quiet speculation that maybe, just maybe, Indy 5 MIGHT turn out OK, MIGHT make up for the narrative disaster that was Crystal Skull, if all the effects were handled like the split-second glimpses we were given in the trailers. I’ve been paying attention to a lot of the reviews being churned out and one common element that comes up are complaints about the CG for the de-aging not…quite…being…there, yet. And while I’ll admit that a few times, especially when ‘Indy’ is on the move, yea, you can see that something a little ropey is going on with Harrison Ford’s face but, by and large, it’s actually pretty well done.
It’d better be, with a rumored $300 million + budget (which is fucking insane!). BUT…I expected it to be a lot worse than it actually was, so maybe having those rock-bottom expectations served me well.
Physics be damned – One thing that is so cool about the original trilogy is the emphasis on actual stunt-work. All three movies, despite also incorporating lots of differing styles of VFX, feature exciting and creative action scenes that were actually filmed ‘in camera’, and that tangibility helps make those entries virtually timeless. Here, like Skull, there is an over-emphasis on the use of easily-dated CG, beyond making an 80-year-old Ford into a 40-year-Ford. The opening action scene, despite probably being my favorite part of the whole damn thing, suffers heavily from this, and with it, the casting aside of anything resembling reality or stakes for the heroes.
Hell, even something as simple as ‘Indy’ donning his trademark fedora while fucking around on the top of a speeding train at night just seemed stupid, as the speed we’re shown the train moving at would tear that thing from his CG’d head in seconds. Nope, there it sits, barely caressed by the extreme wind sheer.
Maybe he stapled it, as Ford famously mimed doing on the Crusade set.
As previously mentioned, this scene culminates with a surprisingly bad air raid by blatantly CG’d bombers that looked, to me, like video game elements you would’ve probably seen a few years ago.
Reacquainting with ‘Indy’ – Our second intro to our hero actually turned out worse than I was expecting.
I’d seen snippets of the sequence in the trailers, but to actually witness a grouchy and confused Old Man ‘Indy’, naked expect for boxer shorts and looking and acting like…well…like an old man (Actually kinda brave of Ford, I have to admit. You can definitely see the mileage.). He’s blasted awake from a drunken stupor by The Beatles from next door and stumbles around his place in an angry daze, which was legitimately depressing to watch. I didn’t think it would be…but it was.
Indy’s so-called life – I refuse to believe that someone as renowned as ‘Indiana Jones’ has proven to be, in past entries, would somehow end up in this insultingly sloppy and undignified senior bachelor existence (right down to the cliché’d drinking problem). Even if he and ‘Marion’ were still experiencing some marital hiccups, and their doofus kid still got himself body-bagged in the ‘Nam, there’s nothing saying that he couldn’t have been portrayed as perhaps a successful author or maybe dean of a college or university somewhere. Something reflective of the adventures and accomplishments that define this man’s formidable life. A life where something’s at risk if he embarks on this theoretically final stab at adventure, as opposed to looking like he’s moments away from sucking on the barrel of a gun, just to get it over with.
*SPOILER* – I’m not even sure Indy HAS a gun in this one. Every time he’s on the trigger, it’s someone else’s piece he’s commandeered. I get that it’s now the late 60’s and perhaps travelling with a .44 S&W Hand Ejector or maybe a 9mm Browning Hi-Power casually tossed into a suitcase might be a bit more difficult, but c’mon…’Indy’ always rolls strapped! (unless some shrieky blond burns her fingers, cracks a nail and yeets it out an open window mid car chase!) But to my recollection, ‘Indy’ does NOT carry a gun here, not that we’re shown anyway.
Helena – I think it’s official: proto-feminist Phoebe Waller Bridge’s (Solo) ‘Helena Shaw’ is an obnoxious insult of a character and has no place in this franchise. Even with all the re-shoots and tinkering in the editing bay, this movie STILL feels like it’s trying to fulfill KK’s woke dream of castrating the patriarchy and shoving PWB down our throats as the next Action Hero to take up the fedora in the World of Indiana Jones, so to speak, vagina and all! There’re entire action scenes where ‘Indy’, for whatever lame reason, has been side-lined and we focus on ‘Helena’ as she leaps from rooftop-to-rooftop or races a motorcycle through a rainstorm after a fleeing Nazi bomber. You know…the Indiana Jones shit.
Not to mention, the character as written is simply unlikable, being a slutty grifter who only gives a shit about getting rich and famous off some relic score. At one point early on, she effortlessly leaves ‘Indy’ to be arrested and potentially killed in order to get what she wants…after stealing from him before his very eyes.
Like…what a bitch!
At the risk of riling up some of the more…sensitive…folks out there…subjectively, she’s not an attractive woman either. Just not my thing. Now, I’m not suggesting that a more ‘ordinary’ looking female lead can’t be possible, but looking back, and speaking as a red-blooded heterosexual male, she just doesn’t fit in.
Let’s compare – Karen Allen’s’ iconic ‘Marion Ravenwood’ is the perfect ‘opposite’ for ‘Jones’, given their complex and somewhat scandalous past (don’t ponder it too deeply, lest Indy become creepy to you), and it did make sense that her feisty and capable, yet sweet and sexy, character would turn back up again, in Crystal Skull (in a far less satisfying role, in a far less satisfying sequel, mind you) and *SPOILER* also here, late in the 3rd Act, for a tacked-on reshoot that felt somehow insulting to both characters involved, despite boasting a moderately sweet call-back to Raiders. Always looked good onscreen though, especially that grin of hers!
Next, we have Mrs. Spielberg herself, Kate Capshaw, as Temple of Doom’s obnoxious lounge singer ‘Willie Scott’. Easily the weakest, most sexist female character of the franchise (as written). Sure…but she was easy on the eyes, back in the day and, like it or lump it, that did / does count for something.
Then, in ’89, we’re introduced to Alison Doody’s duplicitous ‘Elsa Schneider’, a daring and conniving foil for Indy’s Last Crusade, who just also happened to be a highly striking blond who knew how, and when, to turn it on, to get what she wants.
Now, we get stuck with PWB, with her bugged out eyes and odd under-bite that does her profile shots no favors. Not to the calibre of ‘Jones’ women I’ve come to expect. As with ‘Bond’…as with ‘Jones’.
Is this a shallow, possibly sexist, opinion? Probably. But, the key word there…is ‘opinion’.
Sallah. Just like the teeny, depressing inclusion of legacy fave ‘Marion’ that hits in Act 3, we also get another manipulative nostalgia-bait cameo early on, from John Rhys-Davies this time, as Indy’s old digging partner ‘Sallah’, from both Raiders and Crusade. In both those films, the ever loyal ‘Sallah’ was a force to be reckoned with, in his own right. But here, the wily Egyptian pops up in a couple wasted scenes, looking highly eligible for certain retail discounts now as he fumbles through ‘faux’ deep musings about legacy and the high adventure of days gone by.
The script heaps the same narrative abuse on the beloved character as it does on ‘Indy’, reducing ‘Sallah’s once resourceful ‘best digger in Egypt’ character to a mere taxi-cab driver, basically there just to give ‘Indy’ a convenient lift, while also conveniently now being located in New York City, not Cairo.
Antonio Banderas – the role of a sketchy dive boat captain in Greece, who’s also conveniently an old buddy of ‘Indy’s (I mean really, who isn’t, at this point), could’ve been played by ANYONE, literally anyone, but for some reason, the Desperado himself turns up to wear a funny hat and to get wet with CG eels for a scattering of scenes, before *SPOILERS*, being unceremoniously gunned down by ‘Voller’ with barely a final word. I wonder how much scratch Antonio made from what must’ve been less than a week’s worth of work on-set.
John Williams – The musical magic of composer extraordinaire John Williams is the glue that holds so much contemporary cinema together, even just taking his decades long spell of adding the final pieces of dialogue to Spielberg’s filmography alone. His compositions are wonderful when moving through a visual narrative, but also on their own. But…dare I say it…I found that his score here, while undeniably still ‘John Williams’, sounded lazy, if such a thing can be said, of such an accomplished man. If I’m completely honest, more often than not the score sounded like a cut-and-paste from his previous Indy scores. Possibly deliberate, in order to forcefully cue the nostalgia, reminding You that this IS connected to THAT other thing, that you actually like, from Way Back When.
Or…maybe, there was so much bullshit behind the scenes with the constant reshoots, Covid shut-downs, and new endings (I heard there were 4 different endings shot in total) that he flung up his arms, said “Fuck it!”, and literally cut and pasted big chunks from previous Indy scores, with just the slightest tweak here and there.
The pacing – One of the things that Spielberg has a natural flair for is pacing. Go back and re- watch any of the first 3 Indiana Jones movies (or damn near all of his filmography, while we’re at it). While some elements may try your patience (…cough, cough…”Willie”…cough…), I bet you’re not bored. They flow along, taking us on the adventures in a way that organically pulls you in and you don’t feel the ‘mechanics’ of the filmmaking.
I felt the ‘mechanics’ here, and the pacing suffered greatly. It felt very choppy, especially in the first Act, with the pace shifting sporadically, inorganically. If I’m honest, the pacing kept up a choppy tempo right through the needlessly heavy 2 hour and 22 minute run-time, to a climax that felt strangely anti-climactic, and oddly unearned.
Which brings me to my next point…
Voller’s demise – *SPOILERS* So, ‘Indiana Jones’ who by this point has taken a very fatal-looking pistol shot to the chest before being kidnapped and thrown onto a vintage Nazi bomber that’s going to be used by Mads to enter a time warp in the sky that the Dial of Destiny can unlock, or some such shit. After some physics-defying Girl Power, Effortless Action Hero shit, ‘Helena’ manages to get on board just as they take off into a fucking rainstorm. Oh, I forgot to mention that ‘Helena’ has a little pick-pocket side-kick (a la ‘Short Round’ anyone?) named ‘Teddy’ (Ethann Isidore), who’s maybe 13, who has figured out, out of the blue, how to fly a small prop plane, which he does in pursuit of ‘Helena’ and ‘Indy’, who’re trapped on the bomber. They all go through the time warp thingy in the sky and suddenly find themselves over the ancient Battle of Syracuse, where the relic’s inventor ‘Archimedes’ (Nasser Memarzia) fears for his life under a massive Roman navy onslaught. ‘Voller’ realizes ‘Indy’ was right and that the dial did NOT take them back to Munich 1939, but instead way back to this one point, as set by ‘Archimedes’ himself, as a far-flung and nonsensical way to hopefully have his life saved by people from the future, I guess, who he hopes will vanquish the invaders. *shrugs* As ‘Voller’ freaks out about becoming a piece of ancient history, ‘Indy’, who should probably be in a coma, or possibly dead by now, and ‘Helena’, bail out of the stricken plane (somehow, the Roman navy actually scored hits on a WW2 bomber, somehow). ‘Voller’ and henchmen scream cartoonishly…bomber slams into ancient Greek town and ‘splosion!
That’s it. That’s the oh so triumphantly satisfying demise of our main villain. *heavy sarcasm*
I literally snickered at the dismissiveness of it.
The ending – Goddamn, which one?
Ending Number One has ‘Indy’ and ‘Helena’ parachuting into the middle of this massive CG naval siege, startling the locals and bringing ‘Archimedes’ out of hiding to where they land on some beach. After yammering in ancient Greek for a few, ‘Indy’, who should definitely not be upright, or maybe even breathing at this point, announces that he wants to stay in the past, as there’s nothing for him to live for in 1969, because for some reason this pussified version of ‘Indiana Jones’ mentality is somehow trapped in the 30’s / 40’s, unable to have adapted, like he already was a time traveler.
There was a scene early on, where we see ‘Indy’ rocking his classic ‘Indy’ gear for the first time as he heads to an illegal relic auction, or something, in Tangiers in pursuit of ‘Helena’, and he just didn’t fit in with the 60’s aesthetic, which to me was an omen suggesting that, like our main character feeling out of time in the 1960’s, maybe it’s suggesting that this whole franchise would’ve been better off staying a triumphant product of the 1980’s (correct answer to that is Yes, BTW). Anyway, ‘Archimedes’ seems down for this strange, bleeding stranger from the future to stick around, even as their city is being ravaged by a superior naval force. I mean, ‘Indy’, with a 9mm bullet in his chest, is pretty much gonna be a goner anyway so…no harm, no foul, really.
But oh no, PWB gets her British snout all up in ‘Indy’s shit, telling him that he can’t make choices like that, gonna alter history, and blah blah blah (never mind the fact that, just…over…there, are the crashed remains of a Nazi bomber, in ancient Greece, that MAY have some kind of effect on history. Just saying). But, on a heartfelt level, if Indy IS going to check out, he wanted to do it experiencing the very history he’s been pursuing all his life, passing away with a sense of historical completion, feeling content in what could be his last hours.
Then ‘Helena’ decks a mortally wounded senior citizen and we Smash Cut to Black.
Then Old Man Indy is waking up in a reshoot, in his shitty little New York apartment, like it was all a dream. He’s in PJ’s and is all bandaged up. He also doesn’t seem to remember anything at all about being forced back into a tiny airplane flown by a child, while dying, with some random dude who happened to be sleeping in the back when the small kid jacked the plane and flew it into a light-filled vagina in the sky. No recollection of returning to Greece 1969, from which they would’ve had to get ‘Indy’ fixed up toots sweet and transported straight across the world, and straight into his bed…all with him conveniently comatose and unaware.
Then…it’s revealed that PWB has been basically living in his apartment tending to him and, for some reason, now ‘Marion’, who wanted the divorce in the first place, is wandering in with groceries, and perhaps a miraculous new perspective on their relationship, brought about by the condescendingly feminist reasoning of ‘Mary Sue’…I mean ‘Helena’ (I guess?). The performance from Karen Allen (appropriately looking her age here) lacks the spark that made ‘Marion’ so enduring and I’m willing to bet that a handsome paycheque from Disney for probably a day’s worth of 11th hour reshoots couldn’t overcome the obvious mediocrity of the material. The woman, who I adore, just seemed checked out. She seems nearly as dour and done as ‘Indy’ is, which I get in the context of maternal grief, but having them both be looking like they need a nap and a cry just increased the depression I was feeling even further. Then, they’re all huggy and shit, with a distinct call-back to a cute scene from Raiders.
And…for the final shot of the final Indiana Jones movie starring Harrison Ford EVER…drumroll, please…we get a cheesy Iris-In shot (like something from the 1920’s, or even Looney Tunes, that doesn’t feel like it belongs, stylistically, in this franchise) on the fedora now clipped(!) to a clothes line extending out a goddamn window. Just as the iris is about to close on Black, Indy’s elderly hand snatches it and yanks it away.
Black
Um…seriously?!
Holy shit! Disney, Kathleen Kennedy, what the hell have you people done?!
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is a piss-poor send-off for one of the coolest action heroes of the last 40 years, and it turned out to be as bad as I feared it might be.
Full stop.
I had gone in hoping that if I set my expectations WAY low, perhaps I would be pleasantly surprised. But nope, even with the capable and proven James Mangold (Logan) stepping in for Spielberg (who clearly saw the writing on the wall and GTFO early on), this misguided fan-fiction-like product reeks of studio interference and, blatantly, Kathleen Kennedy’s need to promote her obnoxious anti-male stance using yet another facsimile of herself injected into a half-baked story that does more to tear ‘Indy’ down than it does to hoist him up in recognition of the classic character’s undeniable role in the formulation of ‘modern’ action movies.
The movie is easily too long, the CG is over-used and frequently unconvincing (though most of the de-aging is admittedly still not too shabby), the writing of ‘Indy’ as a character is lazy and disrespectful, barely resembling the ‘Indiana Jones’ we’ve come to love over the years (reminding me of the baffling ‘characterization’ of Bruce Willis’ equally iconic ‘John McClane’ , in the terrible bowel movement that was A Good Day to Die Hard in 2013, incidentally also the 5th film in its own franchise, also coming in way too late to be relevant), and unnecessary nostalgia for previous entries is forced into the proceedings, often through the rehashing and cannibalizing of John Williams’ earlier, and better, scores.
The Indiana Jones franchise should’ve stopped at Last Crusade. It’s what Spielberg ultimately wanted (he’s made no secret of this), despite having allowed himself to be pulled into George Lucas’ misguided attempt to fire the franchise back up in the 2000’s, to the poor results we all witnessed. The original series was / is a product of it’s time and should’ve stopped there. What we get with Dial is basically the parading of a corpse, Weekend at Bernie’s-style, the dried-out husk of a franchise that, at one time, thought it knew when to call it quits.
But greed reigns supreme and in Hollywood’s current state of creative bankruptcy, it unfortunately makes sense that Lucasfilm / Disney would want to milk the shit out of their $4 billion investment and exploit every single IP in the catalogue, quality be damned! It’s just a pity that once uber-feminist and hater of the alleged patriarchy Kathleen Kennedy got her filthy mitts on both Star Wars and Indiana Jones, we would see what amounted to a vitriolic deconstruction of classic and beloved male characters in service of this obnoxiously transparent woke agenda of hers. We watched in horror as Disney raped and abused the Star Wars franchise, churning out a new trilogy (among other doomed projects) that ruined its legacy characters in slavish service to The Message, and it was only a matter of time before ‘Indy’ would fall under KK’s knife.
You knew it…I knew it…
…and here we are.
I saw this ‘movie’ on the Big Screen knowing it was going to be bad, without realizing just how bad, and it’s only to the morbidly curious (as I was) that I can recommend checking this one out in the theatre.
But, truth be told, I think you’d be better off pretending that both Crystal Skull and Dial of Destiny do NOT exist, and simply embrace the near-perfect adventure trilogy that that Spielberg, Lucas, Ford and Williams of the 1980’s gifted upon us.
*If the resounding and, at this point, inevitable failure of this garbage at the Box Office doesn’t seal KK’s fate and send her off into unemployed oblivion and obscurity, I don’t know what will. But…it needs to happen. The damage she’s caused these classic and beloved franchises is beyond inexcusable, especially given her long history with Lucasfilm, and Disney needs to run her out, to clear the slate and bring in fresh talent that actually appreciates and respects what came before, to run with the baton. Also, in order to stir the magic back up, a lull of 5-10 years for both SW and ANYTHING Indy-related (aside from maybe a Short Round series starring Ke Huy Quan, if done right) should be put into place so we can get over our collective Lucasfilm fatigue and cynicism, and perhaps allow ourselves to get excited about their prospective output all over again, this time with good reason.
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