A clumsy & dragged out attempt to capture Indy’s Golden Age, hampered by its aging lead & insufferable co-star.

I consider myself to be an avid fan of the Indiana Jones franchise, with a trilogy of movies that I’d argue rivals some of the best that Hollywood has ever produced. I’ve watched the movies, played the shit out of the Indiana Jones Lego games, and (shock of all shock) I actually liked Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. However, even a die hard fan thought that the franchise should’ve finished with The Last Crusade, so hearing the rumours of a new Indiana Jones film after Disney bought Lucasfilm had me concerned, considering how Star Wars fell from grace. So now the movie’s been released, I’m out $15, & I’ve resorted to starting a blog just to express my disgust for this movie. In short, Indiana Jones & the Dial of Destiny is bad, a sad attempt to milk the Indiana Jones cash cow while Harrison Ford can still go, and blindly tries to set up a successor that’s even more unlikable than the fragile antagonist.

I don’t know what Harrison Ford did to piss off Lucasfilm or it’s CEO Kathleen Kennedy, but every time they bring him in to replay a legacy character, it’s always as a more bitter, depressed, and transparent version of that character. He was like that throughout the Star Wars sequel trilogy, and it’s on even worse display here. He’s old, bitter, careless, and I would call this a good basis to build upon his character, but he doesn’t have any growth. By the end of the film, it felt as if nothing had changed with Indy, amost as if he was an afterthought in his own movie. Regardless, this doesn’t make Indiana the worst character since Harrison Ford tries his best to work with the awful script. Also the film introduces a replacement for Ke Huy Quan’s Short Round, but he was such a carbon copy replacement, I never remembered his name, and just kept calling him “New Short Round”. I wouldn’t call him the worst character since he’s just a cheap substitute, that honour goes to Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s character, Helena Shaw, which the entire film is centered around.

She is insufferable, absolutely awful. Whenever Indy and her share a scene, she always has to degrade him & look like the bigger person, especially when the scene doesn’t call for it. She also knows more than Indy, emasculates everyone around her so that she’s the focus, and the only relation that she has with anyone is that she’s the daughter of a character that’s introduced briefly in the prologue of the film. I almost mistook her for an antagonist, since we see her actively stealing & working with an established Nazi in Mads Mikkelsen’s Dr. Voller, the lead antagonist. Like any role that I’ve seen from Mikkelsen, he gives it his all, yet he can’t do much when the script that makes him out to be simple and one minded.

The script itself feels like the remnants of failed script ideas that the writers found on George Lucas’ floor. Many people criticized Kingdom of the Crystal Skull for “jumping the shark” with the idea of space aliens, yet this new movie deals with time travel, which not only feels like the definition of “jumping the shark”, but this just didn’t feel like an Indiana Jones project. In short, the plot sets itself up as Indy and Helena going around the world looking for pieces of the mythical Dial of Archimedes, which is capable of time travel. However, the actual plot is Helena dragging Indy along to find these pieces so she can sell them to dangerous people, all while being chased by incompetent Nazi’s, and yes, she is supposed to be the hero. Not once after the first 15 minutes was there a moment that matched up to the opening act, let alone anything in this iconic franchise. Both the heroes and villains will do things simply because the script demands it, overlooking the plot holes, leaps in logic, and thing happening just because. Even after a point, the constant back & forth looking for the MacGuffins with the boring protagonists made me feel like I was watching Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker all over again. Yet maybe that’s the only story that Lucasfilm knows how to write.

Looking past my criticisms, this is a competently made movie. The director, James Mangold, has an impressive repertoire of films from Ford vs Ferrari to Logan, a favourite of mine. Yet, this film felt like he only got to direct the first 15 minutes, up until we’re caught up with current day Indy. Afterwards, it started to feel like the film was directed more by the Studio reworking Mangold’s original vision. Sure, the film itself is shot & lit confidently, yet I never really had one scene stand out to me as memorable or anything worth a rewatch. Disney and Paramount also managed to get John Williams to score the movie, which is always a plus, yet I felt like I was being nostalgia baited instead of making me feel like i’m watching a modern day Indiana Jones film. It also doesn’t help that The Dial of Destiny is almost two and a half hours, yet an hour could’ve been easily cut, with action scenes being drawn out, people explaining things that either don’t matter or we already know, and even though the movie has more than enough time to stretch out a competent story, the movie just stops near the end without warning, shoeing in a clumsy ending, which I believe overlaps an ending that would’ve made me even more irate. Overall, Dial of Destiny lacks an identity that’s comparable to its own previous instalments, and it ends up feeling like a fan film that managed to get Harrison Ford.

Yet that’s the best way I can summarize the film, a knock off. As I was sitting in that theatre, it felt like I was watching Kathleen Kennedy’s self insert project where she was more important than the established characters. The same thing happened with Rey in the Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, she’s done it with that Willow show on Disney+ that nobody watched, and here we are now where time is repeating itself. Overall, this is such a soul crushing exit for one of cinema’s most iconic action heroes, and this only exists for one and only one purpose, to show that Lucasfilm is completely inept in establishing & growing any existing franchise that they own. Even if they do make a Disney+ show based on Helena, would anyone bother to watch it considering how toxic she’s been throughout this entire film? You can laugh & point at me for hating this film, and I had so much more to talk about and rant on, but with an opening weekend of only $60 million against a baffling $300 million budget & a mixed to negative reception from audiences & critics, don’t be surprised if this is the last we see of the fedora & bullwhip.

3/10

(or the equivalent of being locked in a room full of snakes with Phoebe Waller-Bridge)