Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

The actors and John Williams’ musical motif are pleasing and Harrison Ford’s de-aging is great. The surprise in the climax is more acceptable than the nonsense with the aliens in the last instalment. But the ubiquitous digital, when even a tuk-tuk cruising the narrow Moroccan alleys is not real, is something that I DO NOT WANT in an Indiana Jones movie. Because I still love the films of the original trilogy for their inventive and honest filmmaking. This routine in which filmmakers don’t have to be creative in their craft because the CGI post-production does everything for them is the complete opposite of Spielberg’s original approach. And the potential of every scene suffers because of that. (08/14/2023)

It’s fine that Disney is keeping old dads in mind, even though the mouse lost his shirt on this film. No, it’s not Logan with a whip. Mangold made a safe, old-fashioned movie along familiar lines that is already a bit long in the tooth in the action scenes and, hand on heart, is reminiscent of a conversation with an old man who’s telling you the same old war story for the five hundredth time,  a sure sign of encroaching senility. The pace and gradation fall off after the fine first third and the film thus needs a defibrillator in the form of nostalgia, which fortunately comes so forcefully in the final minutes that the whip regains its crack. And no, I don’t mean that beautiful crisp metaphor of a person who lives from/in the past, but rather that tender scene of two people who are probably hurting all over. I can relate to that! (02/11/2024)

The last quarter of an hour is the only passage where some nostalgia works, and if I were the narrator, I would be much more uncompromising in my completion of Dr. Jones's life's journey. I would have found it much more emotional and logical (connoisseurs know). The rest is inconsistent to say the least. The opening with the train when there's palpable CGI rushing at you from all sides, is not enjoyable, it makes you remember with sadness the train opening of The Last Crusade, where Spielberg didn't need computers (understandably) and it worked much better. The tediously long chase in Tangier again, given the long takes, looks as if the local streets are empty of cars and people and as long as airport runways, I didn't believe it for a second. And that's how it is with everything. It's just such a see-and-forget feel-good movie most of the time, about on the level of the overwrought fourth film. Otherwise, the much-criticized Phoebe Waller-Bridge was fine, she has such a mischievous charisma and is a great counterpoint to the curmudgeonly Harrison Ford, and actually entertained me the most out of the whole film. (09/01/2023)

Not great, not terrible. At the start, when we flashback to World War II and a Wehrmacht officer shines a flashlight in the face of a clearly digital Indy, who squints his eyes everywhere but where he's supposed to, it's a bit scary, but thankfully after a few minutes the train (literally) does slowly move forward and we get a few jokes, solid action and imaginative locations. The dogged effort to honor the unique retro-adventure concept of the saga is evident at every turn, but not always entirely necessary or appropriate. Hats off to Ford, who pulls off some incredible stunts for an octogenarian. On the other hand, I believe this film will probably flop in theaters even if Indy stands on its head. Because it's too uninteresting for the young generation, with an uninteresting, generic pulled out of thin air, and the older viewers would rather watch The Last Crusade, which doesn't need try to go back to its roots, because it’s right there. (07/15/2023)

To a certain extent, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is a safe and modern film stripped of all the appeal, originality, physicality and creative prowess that we loved about the first three installments, and it has also lost much of the magic of adventure. The credits list four screenwriters and the disparity is evident in the result, which feels like it was actually written by an artificial intelligence, it has seemingly all the elements and Indiana Jones film should have, yet it feels more a knockoff than the proper thing. Is it worse or better than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? Hard to say. In some things is better, in others it’s worse. In any case, the qualities of the original trilogy can’t be seen even from the digital train. (06/27/2023)