Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

[Flack]

Indiana Jones got old (it happens to the best of us). At 70 years old, Jones is an artifact himself now, relegated to delivering historical presentations to bored college students. As the film opens in 1969, Jones's adventuring days are behind him. He is now a stereotypical old man, annoyed by his neighbors loud stereo and disinterested in the recent moon landing.

Jones's life is once again turned upside down when his goddaughter Helena appears and inquires about "the Dial of Destiny," part of an artifact Jones recovered from the Nazi's while on a secret mission with Basil Shaw, Helena's father. The dial, created by Archimedes around 200 BC, appears to be some sort of time travel device. The device was so dangerous that it was separated into two pieces, with Jones retaining one half and the other "somewhere." Before long the game is afoot and Jones, with Helena and her own sidekick Teddy, are hopping around the globe in search of the dial with Nazi's in tow.

It was difficult to tell whether they were thinly veiled homages or the new writers and directors had simply run out of ideas, but throughout the film you can check off scenes that appeared in previous installments. Chase on top of a train? Check. Chase involving a motorcycle with a sidecar? Check. Tomb raiding? Check. Jones encountering a cave with bugs and having to face snakes? Check. And, believe it or not, Jones failed to learn the most basic of lessons from Raiders of the Lost Ark, which was not to look behind him before discovering a rare artifact. At least three times in this film, Jones and his pals unravel a riddle or solve a puzzle required to obtain an object only to have the Nazis steal it from them 30 seconds later.

The CGI effects that throughout the film are less cartoony than the previous film's, but at times no less distracting. The film features a long flashback sequence in which Harrison Ford's face (but not his voice) have been de-aged, and while it's not too offensive if you're not staring at it, once you see it, you can't unsee it. Throughout the film you'll see planes, trains, and automo-- motorcycles, all of which look like really good 3D models from any PS5 game. For some odd reason, much of the movie is presented in a heavy sepia tone -- it's as if the director wasn't convinced we would remember this took place in the past and decided to apply a filter to the entire film, something none of the previous films did.

Harrison Ford has said this is his last Indiana Jones film, and so not only must the Dial of Destiny be dealt with, but so does Indiana Jones. A few characters from Jones's past show up at different times, and long standing relationships that have appeared throughout the series are resolved. There are a few gaping plot holes that my wife who does not typically notice plot holes pointed out, but the film pretty much ends how you expect it to, and Jones and finally hang up his hat and whip and retire to the rocking chair on his front porch where he can yell at kids to get off his lawn.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

I like all of Indy's movies. I take it from your review that I would like this? Do you consider it better than Crystal Skull?

Also did you ummmmmmmmmmmmm see it in a theater? Or I guess I can see if it's streaming.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

The ummmmm was a warez question. Not a covid / theater thing. I'm amazed I don't catch it three times a week now.

I hope at this point you know that on forums I'm never fuckin' with ya. Do you know that? I'm not. Ever!

[RealNC]

Jones's life is once again turned upside down when his goddaughter Helena appears

If there was a sex scene between him and her, and then the rest of the movie was about being judged by society with the pair fighting against everyone because "love knows no bounds," I might watch it.

[AArdvark]

How many faded fedoras would you give this?

Can Hollywood stop beating dead horses for gold?

[Flack]

I like all of Indy's movies. I take it from your review that I would like this? Do you consider it better than Crystal Skull?

Also did you ummmmmmmmmmmmm see it in a theater? Or I guess I can see if it's streaming.

We saw it at a local theater. I picked this specific theater because they have super awesome sound. I don't really care about Imax or giant screens or whatever, but killer sound will still get me into a movie theater. I have a decent sound system in my home theater but it doesn't shake the chairs every time something blows up.

This was one of those theaters that has assigned seating and little arm trays for putting food on, but not one with food service like the Alamo Drafthouse. Two tickets were $32 for a 3:30pm showing. We had planned to eat lunch there so we also bought a small thing of nachos, one large drink, and a bag of peanut M&Ms, which came to $18. So, an even $50 for two tickets and a snack. For $50 you can get a 1TB hard drive off of Amazon, which I could fill with downloaded movies and still have about $5 for snacks.

The guy next to me reclined his seat all the way back and slept through the majority of the movie. Each time he started snoring his wife would wake him up and we would stay awake just long enough to check his phone before going back to sleep. The people on the other side of Susan were the loudest eaters ever, shaking their cups full of ice and crinkling their trash over and over. These are the people that remind me why it's usually a better bet to buy the hard drive instead of going to the theater. Theaters would be great without any people.

[Flack]

How many faded fedoras would you give this?

Can Hollywood stop beating dead horses for gold?

When we left the theater the only thing I could say was, "well, that was an Indiana Jones movie." I said a lot of things like "I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it."

I looked online for people ranking all five Indiana Jones movies and they seem pretty split on ranking this one either 3rd or 4th in the list. Everyone puts Crystal Skull last, that's just a given. The list creators all fall in two camps. Half of them say nothing will ever top the first three films, and they put this one fourth. The other half are the people who have moral problems with the Temple of Doom, and those people put Dial of Destiny third, with Temple of Doom fourth and Crystal Skull last. I suppose it's telling that people who are morally offended by Temple of Doom still rank it higher than Crystal Skull.

Time plays a big part in the film. There's the Dial of Destiny, which may or may not actually be a device that enables time travel, but then you've got Indiana Jones's age, and the fact that time has passed him by. Jones was a great archeologist and adventurer and here he is, retiring from a teaching job where nobody respects him and everyone just sees him as a cranky old man.

So, I dunno. At the moment I'd probably rate it fourth out of the five movies. It's a Disney film and so you know some committee said "we gotta make one last film, wrap up this character, send him off you know," and then they did all that and there was only one real surprise in the whole film that made it mildly interesting. When I go to an Indiana Jones movie I want to think about treasure hunting and the unknown world and the entire time we were in the theater I was like, yup, we're all gonna die someday, aren't we.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

The Star Trek films started doing this "we're old" shit with Wrath of Khan. Kirk was 35 when the show started in 1966. So he would have been maybe 51? for it? I'm also seeing the script say 49 when I search. And they kept it up for the next 5 movies. 49 isn't old, hell I'm 49 now and when in the mode of a writer I don't have anything to say about OLD AGE. That's 25 years away.

Poor Indy. I'll see if it's streaming. I like a loud lunch.

[Jizaboz]

I plan on seeing it Thursday night at the local 6$ movie theater. I saw the last one at the drive-in in Mt Airy which is no longer there :(

I actually liked the ending of the last one lol but the swinging from the vines scene and too much of the young dude instead of Indiana in it had me zoning out multiple times.

I still recall seeing Indiana Jones 3 with my parents and when I asked my dad what he thought he remarked "Eh.. it was OK, but they could have left his dad out of it." lol

[pinback]

I assume most people put Raiders first and Last Crusade second.

I also assume that some people have Last Crusade first, and I will never understand that. I don't even think it's remotely close. But I think Raiders is one of the greatest movies of all time, and Last Crusade was an okay sequel. Maybe even good! But not remotely close.

That's my opinion. I'm Mike Disney.

https://tinyurl.com/muazsj9w

[Flack]

The Star Trek films started doing this "we're old" shit with Wrath of Khan. Kirk was 35 when the show started in 1966. So he would have been maybe 51? for it? I'm also seeing the script say 49 when I search. And they kept it up for the next 5 movies. 49 isn't old, hell I'm 49 now and when in the mode of a writer I don't have anything to say about OLD AGE. That's 25 years away.

Poor Indy. I'll see if it's streaming. I like a loud lunch.

It's not currently (legally) streaming as they are trying to get out of the red on this one, which might not happen for a while. Dial of Destiny brought in around $80 million over the holiday weekend with a budget of $300 million, which... ain't good, especially over a five day holiday weekend. It'll break even eventually but they're going to have to milk it in theaters a little longer first.

[Flack]

I actually liked the ending of the last one lol but the swinging from the vines scene and too much of the young dude instead of Indiana in it had me zoning out multiple times.

One of the complaints I've read is that despite not being a very good film, Crystal Skull wrapped up Indy and Marion's relationship which means they didn't need to do it again.

[Flack]

I assume most people put Raiders first and Last Crusade second.

That's the most common ranking, with ToD and DoD jockeying for 3rd and 4th. Raiders is always first and Crystal Skull is always last.

There are multiple long articles discussion the racism in Temple of Doom which... I just don't see. People say it's racist and stereotypes the people of India as weak and unable to defend themselves and requiring a white guy to show up and rescue their children and return their sacred stones which... I mean I didn't think they were saying all people from India from weak, it was just that tribe was pretty wimpy and an evil cult came and took their kids. And people say Short Round is racist, too. So everyone pretty much says Temple of Doom is the worst movie, not necessarily because it's the worst movie, but because of those reasons... which is funny that they put Crystal Skull after that one anyway. It's like making a list of 10 offensive people and putting Jerry Lewis above Hitler, which I might actually do.

[Roody_Yogurt]

I saw this last weekend. I didn't hate it, but personally, I would rank it fifth. Crystal Skull made some big mistakes, but it also had moments that are genuinely fun... and this new one just doesn't have that. It makes some big tonal changes that are never quite remedied before the credits roll.

Personally, I'm harboring a theory that they planted seeds for a future shared-world sequel starring Rami Malek, where his catchphrase will possibly be, "This DOESN'T BELONG in a museum!!" Given how this one is performing so far, I doubt we'll see it.

[Flack]

Kathleen Kennedy has said in interviews that she was pushing for a Helena/Teddy spin-off, but like you said, based on how this one is doing, that seems unlikely.

[Jizaboz]

I actually liked it! Lyndsay did as well. We’ve got a bit of nonsense going on and complete disregard for physics, but hey at least the action is damn near non-stop. I kept wondering when the dial itself was going to be used and what weirdness would happen. Oh man, what happened I was not expecting at all and it was fairly bad ass.

Maybe it’s because I don’t see it in iMax but I really didn’t notice a lot of bad cgi aside from some of the really fast parts I’d see some pretty janky looking 3D models fly by.

A couple in front of us left about an hour and 20 minutes into it so I guess it just ain’t for everyone.

[Tdarcos]

Jones's life is once again turned upside down when his goddaughter Helena appears and inquires about "the Dial of Destiny," part of an artifact Jones recovered from the Nazi's while on a secret mission with Basil Shaw, Helena's father... The device was so dangerous that it was separated into two pieces, with Jones retaining one half and the other "somewhere."

Been there, done that, myself, only it was in Wolfenstein 3D and the dangerous artifact recovered from the Nazis was the Spear of Destiny.

Besides, he had already had a device that melted the faces of anyone who saw it like an acid-bath version of Medusa (instead of turning them to stone), and that (the ark of the Covenant) is a lot more dangerous.