Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny review: Harrison Ford goes to the whip
Cinema's most famous archeologist gets a warmed-over sequel that wastes the talents of Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Mads Mikkelsen
Film Reviews Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Forty-two years after he first donned his signature hat, whip, and khakis, Harrison Ford has finally returned to the big screen for yet another swan song as everyone’s favorite archeologist/adventurer in Indiana Jones And The Dial of Destiny. But while Dial may have all the right pieces on the board to make for another classic entry in the saga, Indy’s latest adventure is a lackluster attempt at reconciling the old with the new. Its lack of emotional stakes and perpetual struggle with pacing means Ford’s last ride as Dr. Jones is more of a whimper than a bang.
Starring Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, and Mads Mikkelsen, Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny picks up with Indiana Jones nearly a decade after we last saw him in 2008’s Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull. Still chugging away as a lecturer to less-than-enthusiastic students, Indiana is reluctantly pulled back into the world of swashbuckling adventure when his goddaughter Helena Shaw (Waller-Bridge) comes to him for aid in locating the mysterious Antikythera device. The mechanism, also called the “Archimedes dial,” is alleged to have the ability to determine “fissures” in time. And though Indy may not believe it works, the Nazis on Helena’s tail certainly do. Together, she and Indy race to stop Dr. Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) and his cronies from finding the pieces of the dial and using its alleged properties to rewrite history and turn the tide of World War II.
What’s frustrating about Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny is how clearly it wants to recapture the magic of its predecessors while fundamentally misunderstanding how to approach a sequel set so chronologically apart from the rest of the franchise. Yes, the film acknowledges that Indy is no longer in his physical prime but, outside of a few age jokes, Dial Of Destiny doesn’t devote any substantial time acknowledging how much has changed for him. The grief that has presumably overtaken his life since Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull—and that will not be revealed here—should drive Indy’s actions over the course of the film. But instead of weaponizing these reveals for maximum emotional payoff, Dial Of Destiny simply mentions them in passing and soldiers on with the Indy/Helena adventure like it’s business as usual.
In a way, it’s admirable that the film jumps so wholeheartedly into recreating the classic formula: Indiana Jones plus a mouthy young woman plus an endearingly resourceful youngster—here it’s Helena’s sidekick, Teddy (Ethann Isidore)—versus a gaggle of Nazis has certainly worked in the past. But the Indiana Jones of this film is so different (both physically and emotionally) from the one we last saw that attempting to shoehorn him into the old style of films as opposed to acknowledging and embracing how much has changed for him is a severe mistake. The film even picks up with his colleagues at the university throwing him a retirement party, but it never explores how Indy feels about finally hanging up his hat as a professor. Tell, don’t show seems to be the name of the game: any time there’s emotional heavy lifting to be done, we hear about what happened in passing as opposed to actually seeing how Indy is grappling with his ever-changing world.
Helena fares slightly better in the realm of emotional stakes, but that’s mostly thanks to Waller-Bridge’s wholehearted performance as opposed to the script co-authored by director James Mangold, Jez and John-Henry Butterworth, and David Koepp. Helena herself is a difficult character to love—though she’s set up as a clever subversion of previous Indy heroines, Dial’s script consistently undermines any likability she’s garnered with the audience by shoving in unfunny quips left and right.
It’s particularly frustrating to see Waller-Bridge (for whom bone-dry comedy is near second nature) forced to deliver such shoddy dialogue, and a testament to her talent that she’s still able to deliver some of the film’s most affecting emotional beats. In terms of pure screen time and action, Helena often takes center stage in a film that should by all accounts belong to Indy, meaning Dr. Jones ends up feeling oddly secondary in a story that’s supposed to be his grand finale.
Although emotions are almost entirely absent and the comedy routinely falls flat, where Dial Of Destiny is able to succeed are the action sequences. The prologue in particular—an extended flashback on a speeding train that features CGI to de-age Ford—boasts some unexpected, laugh-out-loud action moments that harken back to the charm and spirit of the franchise’s roots, but even then the action isn’t as consistent as one would hope.
Between copy-paste Nazi villains whose means and motivations are muddy and a meandering plot that lacks any sense of urgency or personal stakes, it’s hard to be swept away in the world of Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny, though many a fan will try. While its final moments may be remarkably charming, Dial Of Destiny is a lukewarm ending that’s unfitting for a daredevil of Indiana Jones’ caliber.
Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny opens in theaters on June 30
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Shocking that LucasFilm would place an unlikeable female character into one of their franchise films. Kathleen Kennedy just rinses and repeats over and over again.
Unexplained grief: Mutt was struck and killed by a cement truck.
Unexplained grief: Mutt moved in with Indy and is waiting for him to ride bikes when he gets home.
Unexplained grief: Mutt thought it’d be fun to ride around an airstrip and got decapitated by a Beechcraft Bonanza, leading his father to record this:
Unexplained grief: Mutt moved in with Indy, then came out as gay. This being the late-50s America and Indy having been raised in the teens and twenties and an adult in the 30s through the 50s, doesn’t handle it at all well.
I mean, with the lack of Karen Allen and Shia in this movie, I have to assume they had to ice Marion as well as Mutt, so hopefully it was different events that offed them.
Karen Allen has been credited on the latest posters. LaBeouf, on the other hand…
ahh I wasn’t aware of that. I think everyone knew there was no way in hell Mutt would be back. It would be great if was explained that he died on his way back to his home planet, with the aliens from Kingdom of Crystal Skull.
Indy should have access to a time machine…
‘”Indy should have access to a time machine…”’Judging by the trailer it kind of looks like that’s what the dial of destiny is…
Well, actually…..
But when are they going to the fireworks factory?!
I think they may show Marion’s death (if that’s what the “grief” is) with Karen Allen in a new scene, but its hard to imagine the movie trying to play on the emotional heartstrings by having Mutt get killed alone—-since the entire fanbase wanted to see him die in painful ways.
Unexplained grief: Mutt not only moved in with Indy, he brought all those monkeys.
Killed in ‘Nam… by his own troops.
Pancaked by a drunk dump truck driver. Just like Tiny Dinky Daffy (may he rest in peace)
Unexplained grief: Mutt died on the way back to his home planet.
There are spoilers out now. I won’t share them here, but they’re pretty easily found.
No, he went to live on a farm upstate where he can run and play with others of his kind.
They won’t kill off Mutt, everyone will just stop talking about him until he’s basically forgotten. Like Shia LaBeouf’s career.
Unexplained grief: Mutt died on the way back to his home planet.
…And Indy had to keep backing up and trying again because he wouldn’t stand still.
Unexplained grief: A retired Doctor Jones finally has “time for love” but the plumbing is Out of Order.
Grief over that would indeed be inexplicable.
Mutt is styling his hair by dipping his comb RC Cola in heaven nowHeaven only has RC Cola. Spoilers
Mutt was struck and killed by a cement truck.On his way back to his home planet.
Don’t know if they magic him up somewhere in this film, but it’s Denholm Elliot I miss the most from these films. He was kind of Indie’s handler but also way out of his league but did it with quiet charm and sincerity. Definitely my fav Indie character.
From The Last Crusade Indiana Jones: Come on, dad. Help me get us out of here. We have to get to Marcus before the Nazis do.Professor Henry Jones: But you said he had a two day head start. That he would blend in, disappear.Indiana Jones: Are you kidding? I made all that up. You know Marcus. He once got lost in his own museum.
“Ah, does anyone here speak English?”
Water?
No thank you, fish make love in it.
“Water? No. Fish make love in it.”
“…or ancient Greek?”
I HATE how Last Crusade turned Marcus into a bumbling idiot.
I can see how Marcus was having a rough time in the field. It had probably been decades since he was last out there and I’m sure his time wasn’t like Indy’s. So it does makes sense in the movie.
Agreed. He wasn’t a pitiful joke in Raiders.
Yeah, what little we see of him in Raiders isn’t pitiful, he’s slick, a mover and a shaker. There’s a great moment when Indy’s showing him other artifacts he picked up in the adventure at the beginning of the film, trying to convince Brody to finance a trip to get the idol back from Belloq. And Brody’s kind of pishposhing what Indy’s telling him, because he’s there to take Indy to the meeting with Porkins and the other government guy, and isn’t that interested in Belloq. But he takes a single glance at the artifacts that Indy’s put in his hands, says “Oh, these are nice,” and just slips them into his pockets, smooth as anything.But I always thought that was part of the joke in the Last Crusade. Brody’s an operator in a college, or at his museum, but he’s lost in the field. And I think his performance is important to the movie, since Connery’s playing against type as someone who isn’t a natural man of action. If they hadn’t used Marcus for him to play off of, they would’ve had to invent a new character who was even more inept in the field than Henry.As much as I love The Last Crusade, I think that the dynamic with Henry, Marcus, and Indy would’ve worked out better if it was made clear that the guy River Phoenix gets the fedora from at the beginning of the movie (played by Richard Young) was supposed to be Abner Ravenwood.
!!!I had not pieced that together. Do they mention his name in the movie?
No, and he’s credited only as “Fedora” on IMDB. I’m trying to remember which podcast I heard the Ravenwood factoid on, but every movie podcast I follow has done Indiana Jones eps recently in preparation for Dial of Destiny (and most have specifically done Last Crusade). Maybe the Rewatchables?But hearing it, that whole opening changes, and the way both Phoenix and Fedora play that scene makes a lot more sense. Indy doesn’t pattern his whole life after an adventure he had one afternoon, and a guy he met once for five minutes. If it’s Ravenwood, we know that Indy eventually tracked that guy down, forming a surrogate family that only broke up when Indy fell for his daughter. It’s kind of strange for them to leave in all the “overexplaining prequel” details (Indy gets his fedora, his appreciation for whips, his fear of snakes, and the scar on Harrison Ford’s chin all in one afternoon) and not leave in a line name-checking that the guy is Marion’s dad, the guy who (off-screen) sets the first movie in motion?
OMG, YES!!!! And here I thought I was the ONLY one who thought this.
Many times, I think, Spielberg REALLY has a funny idea/joke that he just HAS to put up on the screen. That whole “Tickets on the German blimp” scene in “The Last Crusade” feels like it was put in because Spielberg had a joke that he felt would make a GREAT visual.
But we barely saw him in Raiders, so I don’t see why giving him some comical moments in Crusade is such an issue. Maybe it’s a personal thing but I enjoy Brody’s funny bits and he still gets in some badass moments like Donovan he’s meddling with powers he can’t comprehend.
Plus, watch the behind the scenes of the original trilogy and actor Denholm Eliot said he enjoyed Marcus’s comical parts, so if he was cool with it, what’s the issue?
Truth. They threw him under the bus for some cheap gags. Marcus wasn’t supposed to be an idiot.
Best line in the film
Sadly, Elliot had been diagnosed with AIDS not long before Crusade started filming, and often had to leave set for illness. He died just a couple years after the movie was released. Peter Ustinov spoke at his funeral. Watched with that in mind, it’s touching to to see a man actively dying of AIDS deliver such a joyful, funny, scene-stealing performance.
I didn’t know he died of AIDS. What a trooper, being that full of joy and life despite knowing the end was near.
Raiders and Trading Places were my intros to Denholm Elliott, and he’s the heart of both.
Yep. Trading Places was good enough it didn’t need elevating but he still elevated it.
His delivery of “Egg nog?” is one of my favorite moments in that movie and I break out my impression every Christmas.
Man, could that guy eat scenery. I can still watch his delivery on explaining the Ark of the Covenant’s power and how it was used in the past and possible future and get the shivers.It was both subtle and grave. One step in ‘could be a fantasy but man, if it ain’t…..’
This whole scene is such a master class in how to do exposition without making it dull
Love the casual way he steals, goes to eat, then pockets the apple while they discuss stealing antiquities.
Peter Ustinov had this to say about him: “He was a complicated, sensitive, and slightly disturbing actor. Not only was he a very accomplished actor, he was a dry, witty, and slightly menacing individual. As a man, I always found him very open, very straightforward and very much to the point.”
i guess my only hope for this is that it bombs so disney leaves the franchise alone forever.
Reboot with Ed Sheeran as younger Indy!(you know its coming)
not if it doesn’t make any money!
That ranga’d last five seconds in the desert.
This time with no whip, but a tiny guitar!
Ooo! James Corden as a young Marcus and Meghan Trainor as the love interest? It’s perfect!
I’m thinking more along the lines of Selleck finally stepping into the role they originally wanted him for.Now.With him weighing 300lbs.
So, not quite as bad as IGN had us believe but still a letdown that will further dilute the franchise.
Indy, Jones Sr., Marcus and Sullah riding into the sunset at the end of Crusade was just such a perfect bow on the original run.
And to be clear, if River hadn’t died, and they got right on making the next one, with all the writers and producers from Crusade, it probably results in a bunch of good films.But oh well. Such is life. Too much money to be made from the franchise to let it rest in peace with Crusade.I guess we should’ve all expected another lukewarm effort once Spielberg left partway through the making of this film. Not a good sign no matter what his ‘official reason’ was.
Mangold has a pretty good track record so I was cautiously optimistic he could do good work here. His two Wolverine movies were way better than anyone would have expected after Origins and he’s got more hits than misses outside of those too.
I read the spoilers. He did not.
That final shot BELONGS IN A MUSEUM
“dilute the franchise.” People have been crying about this since Temple of Doom.
and they were right!
I saw it tonight and enjoyed it quite a bit more than the reviewer, for whatever that’s worth. Note: I may be in love with Phoebe which severely clouds my judgement. Also, I’ve watched Fleabag so many times I kept expecting her to look directly at the camera and would have been quite happy if she had.
I’m confused. You say this is the fifth Indy movie, but there are only 3 Indy movies.Raiders of the Lost Ark.Temple of DoomLast Crusade.See? 3 Indy movies.THERE ARE ONLY 3 INDY MOVIES JUST LIKE THERE ARE ONLY 4 LIGHTS!!!
Hilarious stuff
I really believed I could see 5.
After this one, there will still be only three Indiana Jones movies.
Good point. I’ll probably watch it when it comes to streaming, but won’t go out of my way.
2.5 really. Every time I watch Temple of Doom it confusingly cuts from a raft falling out a plane to a mine cart chase. There seems to be a whole middle section missing. Too bad too, I’m sure there was no problematic stuff there.
Raft? All I remember is him falling asleep on a plane and waking up on a wooden plank bridge.
“We walk from here”Then it just cuts to Ke Huy Quan’s Oscar acceptance speech.
Shia was all set up to take over from his aging father, was he not? But then he kind of went crazy so they decided to boot him from the franchise. Whatever is going on, and however the critics analyze the movie, we have to remember that this franchise was never supposed to be great film-making, just B-level action fun for family viewing.
Counterpoint: Fun Action for the Family can ALSO be great film-making! In fact, it should be! Look at Jurassic Park, Jaws, the 1st and 3rd Indiana Jones Movies, Wall-E, Mad Max: Fury Road, etc…We shouldn’t give license for movies to be sloppily made just because their genre excuses it.
“Fun Action for the Family…Mad Max: Fury Road”dude
Is it not? I don’t have kids, but I know my then-13/14 year old cousins loved it and, presumably, saw it with their parents.
I mean, I get your point, but I agree with his more–as the father of two teenage boys, Mad Max FR was written with us in mind. There are certainly gross and overall adult implications in this, but they’re so far in the background you damn near forget about them.
no it was inspired by b-level action movies, reinterpreted by a-level talent. if you’re saying spielberg’s work on the indiana jones franchise didn’t have ‘great film-making’ you’re flat-out wrong.
When they introduce Marion in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the drinking contest is one long shot, where the camera follows the shot glasses up and down, while money changes hands in the foreground. It’s not fussy, and sets up Marion’s entire milieu in less than a minute. And then a minute later you have Indy’s shadow appearing on the wall, and a few minutes after that you have the movie’s big gunfight. It’s just wonderfully paced and edited and acted.
Just one time I’d like to see one of these “OH NOES THE NAZIS ARE TRYING OCCULT SHIT AGAIN” stories where the hero is like “Nah, no worries, they absolutely WILL fuck it up.”
Just have the hero leisurely wander in a couple weeks after they were made aware of said occult shit and have them chuckle at all the pillars of salt wearing Hugo Boss that are standing around an ancient talisman or something.
Marcus: “Indy! The Nazis have recovered the Staff of Moses and are delivering it to Hitler as we speak!”Indy: “Eh…wait it out.”Jumpcut to NY Times Headline: “HITLER TURNED INSIDE OUT SOMEHOW?!
Oh my god the Veil of Veronica blinded every nazi for 200 miles!
“Hubris, Jew God Wrath Likely Done It” Says Hatted Archaeologist
“This is Why Every Archeologist Should be Catholic” – Opinion: Ross Douthat
That should be a Hellboy miniseries on one of the streaming networks.
They should’ve giftwrapped the Lost Ark and parachuted it into downtown Berlin. God’s screaming murder ghosts would’ve taken care of business in about 30 seconds.
Much as I love Raiders of the Lost Ark, it’s actually one of the few movies where if the hero hadn’t been in it, the outcome would have been exactly the same.
The Nazis would have still located the Ark (eventually), Belloq would have still taken it out to the desert to test it out before delivering to the fuhrer, and everybody present would have still had their faces melted off by the wrath of god or whatever.
The only difference is that presumably the ark itself would have gotten buried under a ton of sand and lost forever… rather than transported to a government crate warehouse. Either way, the Nazis still would have lost.
Perhaps, and it’s a strange way to write a story, with such a non-central protagonist. But… if Indy hadn’t taken the mission in the first place, the Nazis might have never found the Ark (they didn’t seem to be looking nearby, and seemed to be losing patience with efforts in progress). But if they did find it, their initial plan was to fly it to Germany, thus not providing Belloq with the opportunity to open it and get everyone melted. Maybe in Berlin they would have been smarter? Given how the Ark seems to feel about Nazis, it’s not at all clear from the movie that it would have ultimately done them any good, anyway, but, umm, that’s getting speculative…
Agreed, I love Raiders but in the end Indy didn’t really do anything, they opened the Ark themselves.
Having just watched this movie, you’re not actually entirely wrong…
….I never thought about that. Someone also pointed out that, had Indy not interfered, the Ark would have been opened in front of Hitler.
I saw this tonight and halfway expected Ford to have a line like this towards the end, when, you know, the thing gets used (which is only a spoiler for anyone that’s never seen a movie, I guess, since OF COURSE they use the thing they’ve been after the entire movie)–a line along the lines of “don’t worry, I’ve done this a few times…they’ll turn it on even though I’ll tell them not to, it will all go sideways, they’ll die horrible deaths due to their own hubris and we will miraculously escape”…though maybe less wordy.
I’d really love to see Indy grow in any substantial way. Partway through this movie he lectures someone about “science” and if you can’t prove something, it isn’t science. Bitch, please. You watched ghosts melt zombies from the Ark of the Covenant. You watched a dude reach into another man’s chest and rip out his still beating heart. And then you met a knight who was 500 years old and drank from Jesus’ chalice, which, oh, by the way, the water from it you used to cure your dad from death. It’s crazy how none of the movies acknowledge any of crazy shit he’s seen.
When has one of these legacy sequels off an aged franchise really worked? The only one I can think of at all is Maverick, and that was to a single film that was more a product of its time than anything people had real emotional attachment to.
it’s not an aged franchise, but the color of money is probably the other great legacy sequel, ironically also with tom cruise.also, speaking of cruise, you could maybe make an argument that mission impossible has been going so long they’ve become their own legacy sequels.
MI never really took a break so I wouldn’t include it.I can’t believe I forgot Color of Money, a truly great movie. Not off a franchise, but seeing Fast Eddie at the beginning and (sort of) end of his career is pretty affecting.
i watched both of them back to back for the first time and it really worked well as a double feature.as for logan, logan is almost a tribute to the concept of a legacy sequel.
???? MI took a break for 30 years.
I think you’re splitting hairs there when talking about what used to be a TV show.
I don’t. The first movie features the main character from the original show.
What made me feel realllll old: More time passed between Top Gun and Top Gun: Maverick than passed between The Hustler and Color of Money.
Not film, but Twin Peaks: The Return was pretty damn awesome.
Would you consider Terminator 2? Mad Max Fury Road. I liked the last Rocky movie and the first Creed. It wasn’t my cup of tea, but Bladerunner 2049 was very well-received. Toy Story 3 is good. Logan?
T2 maybe – those were seven years apart and clearly Sarah is an entirely difference person. Not really sure about Fury Road – it’s more like a reboot since the continuity doesn’t make any sense in the contect of Road Warrior and Thunderdome (never mind the post-apocalyptic retcon from Mad Max to RW).Toy Story 4 would qualify. I consider 1 – 3 very much of a piece. I haven’t seen and so can’t opine on whether it’s any good.
I’ll go yes on Logan. It’s not a continuation of their previous adventures for sure.
The continuity didn’t make sense in any of the Mad Max movies. That gyrocopter guy was in two movies ands Max doesn’t recognize him.No word on Rocky Balboa or Creed? Shame
I’ll take Creed all day.I always thought Bruce Spence’s casting in Thunderdome was an in-joke, since he supposedly drove the bus that carried the tribe to the coast at the end of RW.
mad max movies aren’t really about continuity, though.
There was a bigger gap between Toy Story 2 and 3 than there was between 3 and 4.
You seem to have nailed them all. Aliens, too. Godfather III would have gotten there if they had Wynona Ryder and Robert Duvall in the cast.
Fury Road, yes. T2 was too close to the original. When the star looks (basically) as they did the first time around, it’s not a legacy sequel. According to my rules, anyway. (The exception is Maverick, because Tom Cruise’s slow aging is just creepy.)
Star Wars
shut up honky
Creed? Also I still say The Force Awakens is great but I understand that’s not a popular opinion on the internet
Good call on Creed. Like Maverick, it leaned into the attachment audiences have to a character they met a long time ago who is now at the end rather than the beginning.ETA: I liked TFA just fine but was honestly surprised what a near-remake of Star Wars it was, right down to a main character eking out a subsistence living on a remote desert planet. I’m the camp that loved The Last Jedi and then was massively let down by Rise of Skywalker.
Last Jedi was the only good sequel. TFA is just straight up mediocre. Rise of Skywalker is not just the worst SW movie, but one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.
TFA really looked like everyone involved loved what they were doing. The sheer enthusiasm from Ridley and Boyega alone was pretty great.
And even more pertinent to this comments section, it was a shock, after a late career stretch where he phoned in a lot of performances and with him pretty much treating Star Wars with disdain from the end of the Return of the Jedi publicity tour on, to see the enthusiasm and effort Harrison Ford brought to TFA. It was a moving performance I didn’t think he had in him.
Creed, for sure.
I thought you meant the Mel Gibson western. Which… was kinda a legacy sequel since it starred the original Maverick from the TV show? Also… Gibson not withstanding, that film really holds up. It’s a delight.
Nice pull. Jodie Foster is so much fun in that movie.
I really love Maverick. The summer I graduated college, I kicked around my hometown a few months before I moved to a new city. All I remember of that summer is watching Maverick in a near-continuous loop on HBO.
I was wondering about that too, if they were referring to the Mel Gibson Western and the Top Gun Sequel. Where Maverick differed is that you didn’t know James Garner was the original Maverick until the end of the movie, the whole movie had you thinking that Mel Gibson was the Brett Maverick of the TV series. The same could be said the Samuel L Jackson Shaft movies which at first just seemed like SLJ was playing the original John Shaft until the OG Shaft shows up as his uncle.
Fury Road. Blade Runner 2049. Creed, if you count that.
The new Planet of the Apes movies are legacy sequel/prequel/alternative timeline movies in my opinion. We see Charlton Heston’s photo on the news in the first one. And they’re pretty good movies especially the third one.
I love Mel Gibson and Jodi Foster, but Maverick was just okay.
It’s just kind of low-stakes fun. A romp, if you will. Same category as Young Guns. Tombstone and Unforgiven were released around the same time if you wanted something a bit more serious.
It’s a really good okay, though.
ST Picard season 3
Not sure if they count because they are on TV but Twin Peaks: The Return and the final season of Picard.
PSYCHO II is really a heck of a lot of fun. The plot, and setup especially (the state held his house for him and rented it out while he was institutionalized, because that’s of course they did) , are freaking ridiculous when you think about it, but they work fine. And PSYCHO III is also very good.
I think Scream 5 works because of how much they lampshade the concept of “requels” as they refer to them in the film, but Scream has always been a very meta franchise.
Twin Peak’s was great, Superman Returns got more shit than it deserved, and The Color of Money, Creed, Mad Max, Blade Runner 2049 and Picard were all worthwhile efforts.
Maverick is arguably the best of the legacy sequels. And while it’s definitely a good film in its own right, it certainly helps that the original film it’s following up was actually pretty terrible.
Trainspotting 2
Was that any good? Never saw it but reviews were decidedly mixed.
This movie was honestly pretty great. It had strong Raiders vibes, played a lot of love to the other films in the franchise, had a stellar final scene, and metatextually, it’s interesting to see a pulp hero finding himself aged out of the world he knows best and having to rediscover his love for archaeology and adventure, and–as a guy who has spent four films surrounded by friends and family–rediscovering a tether of love.
I don’t think there’s many people left who are invested enough to care but Rambo IV did something quite interesting, in that it made a conscious effort to re-contextualize parts 2 and 3 so that they felt more comfortably like they followed First Blood. That first film has this gorgeous Ted Kotcheff melancholy woven through it, and then the Carolco sequels just sent the character into wham-bam Cannon Films territory. But Part 4 proposes to show Rambo as sad and scary again, so repurposes the footage from 2 and 3 (as well as the unused ending from part 1) as trauma flashbacks. I don’t think it’s meant to be “they were only a dream” but it does reposition them as events that happened to a vulnerable and damaged guy rather than a superhero.My other, heavily qualified suggestion: It came too late to matter and has a saggy CGI middle section that could have been liposuction’ed out to absolutely no negative effect, but that last Terminator movie gave me the feeling that I was watching a genuine sequel for once, rather than a glorified party piece.
– Before Sunset/Before Midnight are arguable the GOAT. (On the documentary side, there’s the Up series.)- Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan (one can argue for including TMP or skipping), and/or TNG in general. – I for one really like Jurassic World.- Does The Mask of Zorro count? I’m pretty sure original Zorro himself was the only legacy character (even his wife in the prologue was new, along with his nemesis from the end of his Zorro run to the movie’s present), but, if so, that would surely take the grand prize.- Spider-Man: No Way Home for the Raimi movies.- If one squints and considers history-based works, you can make all sorts of connections, like Spielberg’s Lincoln being a legacy sequel to John Ford’s Young Mr. Lincoln.But, yeah, the list of successes is a short one.
I don’t really put Linklater’s trilogy in the same category but in terms of delivering pure storytelling satisfaction I agree it’s uniquely great. The fight they have in the hotel room near the end of Midnight was so raw I wanted to beg them to stop before it was too late.
Must every blockbuster be 2.5 hours now? The original is one of the best films in history and it came in under 2 hours.
While its final moments may be remarkably charming, Dial Of Destiny is a lukewarm ending that’s unfitting for a daredevil of Indiana Jones’ caliber.
It may not be the best ending for the character, but I’m sure it’s better than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull being his goodbye. (I haven’t seen it yet so obviously this is just an assumption)
People who saw it say it makes Crystal Skull looks good in comparison, like the SW prequels after the sequels.
Saw it tonight and disagree with quite a few points the reviewer makes, but the ending really is charming.
I disagree because I don’t think Marion and Indy sign divorce papers and then get back together. I think they should have been together from the start
I thought the ending was spot on and terrific. This reviewer seems to have gone in with the intent of NOT enjoying it.
The film is fine. Not super -great and lacks a bit of the scope of the other movies but it is enjoyable and more action packed than I was expecting. I’d watch it again.
Finally someone else that’s seen it. This was my reaction as well. I quite enjoyed it, and there was nothing in this that made me roll my eyes as hard as a life raft out of a plane and down a mountain, most of Crystal Skull, and everything in the Fast and Furious movies that happens after about 2/3 of the way through Tokyo Drift.
The movies starts of really strong but too me as it goes on it sort of loses interest and pads its self a bit. The ending was okay.
Once they leave Tangier the pace gets a little lax, although “underwater skeleton ship” is something I can’t not enjoy. The ending went on way too long, but I’m mostly disappointed that the hillbilly henchman didn’t get a more terrible comeuppance (at least they went all-in with the big moose looking guy).
Just tell me there’s a scene where CGI Shia LaBeouf gets run over by a truck, steamroller, and the USC Marching Band.
My father went the same way 🙁
Goddamn I love me some unexpected Naked Gun. Well done all!
+1 post Star Trek Khan
He pulls out a sword to try and fight the NVA but immediately gets machine gunned as a tank falls on top of him followed by a napalm strike.
My interest in this movie before opening the review, as someone with zero nostalgic attachment to the series/character, was about a 1 out of 10, but after finding out Waller-Bridge and Mads are in it, I’m at a solid 3 or 4.
Personally I could have used more Mads screen time, but I thought Phoebe was quite good in this.
This breaks the reverse Star Trek movie thing these movies had going:1 good, 2 bad, 3 good, 4 bad, 5…eh.
I always thought Trek movies got a raw deal because while 1 is trash, 2-3-4 are actually pretty god damn great. 5 bad, 6 great, 7…eh, 8 a-MAH-zing…then they never made anything else in the entire franchise.
I think this is a misunderstanding of how the Trek thing works. It’s not that even films are all good and odd all suck. It’s that any given odd film will be lesser than the even films adjacent to it and vice versa. So… 3 is good but less than 2 or 4. 10 is weak but better than 9. Etc.
I like this explanation, because Search for Spock is a genuinely good heist/rescue movie.
And I like this explanation because TMP isn’t actually bad, it’s just weird: like Robert Wise somehow missed a memo and thought he was making 2001 and not a Star Trek movie. It’s got some of the franchise’s visually grandest moments juxtaposed against some of the franchise’s unintentionally campiest.And then Wrath of Khan is kind of a masterclass in making a great, tight movie out of a committee-driven, pulp, pop franchise.
3 > 2
I tried to watch TMP again, and weird is a great way to describe it. It’s like they gave someone a vague idea of what Star Trek is and, aside from the ship’s design, were told to just go with whatever they wanted. I am probably wrong given how self-referential Star Trek is in general between the shows and various movies, but I don’t believe those god-awful uniforms were ever mentioned again? And that 38-minute first slow shot of the Enterprise just makes me laugh anymore…at first…then sort of chuckle…and then laugh really hard that it’s still going. So it’s like an overused Mike Myers joke in that respect I guess.
“1 good, 2 bad, 3 good, 4 bad, 5…eh.”
Could also kind of be said about Daniel Craig’s Bond movies
I sure wish we could delete comments.
Indiana Jones and The Beating of a Dead Horse.
It should’ve been Short Round in place of Shaw.
so, to be clear, the film doesnt work because it doesnt acknowledge that Indy is old and not as skilled as he once was, while not trying anything new in style… So you disliked it because it did the opposite of the things Kingdom of the Crystal skull did and got ripped apart for?
why should they be beholden to the critical response of a movie that came out 14 years ago?also like…the opposite of something bad isn’t always something good.
It does the opposite of the things Crystal Skull did, but Crystal Skull didn’t get ripped for doing them: it got ripped for doing them in a facile manner with bizarrely poor writing, direction and editing, especially for the people involved. And functionally, there’s barely a difference between treating Indy’s age only like an occasional bad joke and never dealing with it all.
I mean, we got a SHIT-TON of pathos out of Indy interacting with the father he (and we) never knew in Last Crusade. Interacting with his newfound son and lost love in Crystal Skull amounted to bad pratfalls and sitcom bickering. Here in Dial of Destiny, he’s barely connected to anyone at all, but it’s not explained by a life of loss, which WOULD be cool, but lazy “get this out the door so we can make a buck” writing.
Yeah, Crystal Skull lampshaded Indy’s age, mostly as an excuse to not deal with it.
Yeah I didn’t realize Helena Shaw is the daughter of a NEW CHARACTER we meet in this movie. So it’s not like you even get the benefit of them bonding over fond memories of a legacy character audiences connect with. It’s literally some dude we just met.
Did you miss the several scenes where Indy explains that the death of his son broke him emotionally?
Very much so, because I haven’t seen it. I was describing what appeared to me to be the critic’s intent, which I apologize for not making clear.If that scene IS in the film as you say (and it’s not done poorly), well, then the critic seems to be incorrect.
Sorry, it was not at all clear that you were writing from a point of not having seen the movie. It is spelled out VERY CLEARLY that the death of Indy’s son devastated him. Spoilers, I guess….
*shrug* It’s difficult to be spoiled on pastiches that directly reference B-movie-style episodic storytelling that was cliched even in the era it was created. I figured they would just bump him off. I’d just be more surprised if it was done well, especially after Crystal Skull, and generally with the current state of big IP filmmaking. So the review here seemed to be about in line with what I expected and still expect.
But if the review is omitting/forgetting extremely important details for the sake of bashing the popular kid on the playground, that is double surprising. Or at least good to hear on the film side and dismaying on the “has the AVClub gone downhill” side.
You’ve never seen an AV Club review make a mistake before???
*further downhill, hehe
I think the review explains it well enough. But even if what you aid was true, a movie can still “do the opposite” and still not be good.Which is the case here. I saw it yesterday (a friend really begged me) and I was 100% correct that I shouldn’t have wasted my time. Everyone should just stop at 3, forget the last two. It is unfortunate.
“Harrison Ford goes to the whip”What is this phrase even supposed to mean? There are plenty of idioms involving whips that you can play off of, but…goes to the whip?ETA: Here, I’ll give you one for free: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Diminishing Returns: Listless Sequel is Anything but a Whip-cracking Good Time.
It means a jockey using his whip on a horse in the home stretch to make it finish as fast as possible.
I have found precisely one attestation to that phrase and meaning, and it was on urban dictionary (doubtless where you found it, as it’s the first result that shows up on Google). The phrase can not be found in any other legitimate dictionary. Instances of “go/goes to the whip” I have found on Google ngram viewer all refer to “whip” in the legislative sense. But assuming it’s a common idiom and the meaning is clear to the general audience (it’s not, and it’s not)…what is the headline writer getting at?
Now that I can’t tell you. The headline doesn’t seem to correctly use the phrase. FYI, I didn’t look up the meaning, I somehow knew it already, possibly from watching horse racing and movies about it.
Yeah, I’ve heard the phrase before and knew (or assumed) it originated from horse racing. The implication is that it’s an urgent attempt in the final stretch to win. It’s a forced attempt at wordplay using an idiom that really isn’t in common parlance.
Having lived a large portion of my life in horse country (central Kentucky) I was familiar with it, but would be surprised if people unfamiliar with horse racing (which is most people when talking about anything other than the Derby, I’d guess) knew what it meant.
And that’s pretty much the opposite of what the review has to say about the movie, which has a “meandering plot that lacks any sense of urgency or personal stakes.” If anything, the headline should’ve been “Harrison Ford Doesn’t Go to the Whip…”
Harrison Ford’s affinity for BDSM exposed.
Harrison Ford whips it. Whips it good.
Hes tied to the whipping post and the franchise feels like its dying.
Excellent reference/song!
Frank Zappa – Montana (Whipping Floss) Live in Helsinki – YouTube
Agreed. I thought it was a positive review based on that opaque headline.
yet another swan songI hate the fact that you can say that and it makes sense in this context.
“THIS DAMN SWAN WON’T SHUT UP!”
Mutt getting Poochied so hard is hilarious to me. Hell I know Shia is a shithead and the writing was loopy for the character, but goddamn they really dropped a piano on his head so to speak.
Wow, they really did do that. Oh well, can’t say I’m sorry.
Yeah I read the spoilers and laughed out loud of the resolution to that character.
Partial payback for him publicly shitting all over the previous movie.
Meh, I’m still gonna pay $$ to see this.
I’m hoping for Waller-Bridge to put on the hat at the end and start calling herself the new Indiana, just to see people freak out.
These missed opportunities all started with The Last Crusade. Indiana Jones lived the most incredible life. He didn’t just compete with Nazis. I wanted to see the screenwriters mix it up. Put Indy everywhere like James Bond, not re-hash plotlines used before. Jones fan fiction and novels are far superior to any of the 3 sequels.
Crystal Skull is better than Temple of Doom.
Tell that to the motherfuckin Muppet Babies you philistine.
Yeah, but the Muppet Babies version of ToD superseded the original and is now my personal canon.
I’m with you. I still hear Kate Fucking Capshaw screaming in my head whenever this film is mentioned.
RE:”Harrison Ford has finally returned to the big screen for yet another swan song as everyone’s favorite archeologist/adventurer…”
….’yet another swan song’…
The fact that you began your ‘review’ with that snarky slant reveals you to be that most LOATHSOME of commentators;
The type that looks for bones in boxes of Animal Crackers.I`ll check it out for myself, rather than trust your opinion.
“In terms of pure screen time and action, Helena often takes center stage in a film that should by all accounts belong to Indy, meaning Dr. Jones ends up feeling oddly secondary in a story that’s supposed to be his grand finale.”So the incel trolls were right at the end. Incredible.
Seen yesterday (here in Italy it opened yesterday) and the problem is the rewrites are all over the place. The movie is schizophrenic in its portrayal of the characters and just puts a lot of scene one after another with no real sense of progression.The finale is clearly attached with bad duct tape and leave behind eve some premises from the first part of the movie. It’s apparent it was not the original finale.Pity since there were, here and there, some cool moments and nice pointers, but the writing is all skewed.
Bullshit. It was great. TONS of emotion. Ford gives some of his finest acting, full stop. He carries that pain and loss throughout, and when he does lay it out, everything he had been thru in the past 20 years, it is devastating, and you suddenly see all that weight pulling him down. The last 15, 20 minutes had me sobbing. I’m going again this weekend with friends. I love it.
Right?! How are reviewers like this just totally slagging this movie? I had a ball, as did the entirety of my friends and family who went with me. We ALL had smiles (and some wet eyes) afterwards!
I didn’t love the third act, but I did enjoy how weird that plot twist was, and also how they handled the emotional beat of Indy watching a historical event unfold with pure awe (despite everything, the character is rarely if ever awestruck). And ending the movie on a sight gag with his hat was very cute. What I really liked about the movie was how witty it was – the first few movies are memorable because the action scenes have punchlines. Indy jumping a horse away from a train, only to find himself in front of another train was funny. So was Indy jamming a soldier helmet against a car gas pedal and leaping onto a motorcycle before the car crashed. The first half of the movie is fast paced and witty without being frenetic or goofy. I came out of the theater feeling like I had just watched an Indiana Jones movie, and a few hours later I’m thinking about memorable moments. The last one did neither of those things.
Just got back from seeing it and I really enjoyed it. A very enjoyable afternoon at the cinema.Plenty of laughs, some great action scenes and a heartfelt end which was a nice goodbye to the character.
The ‘this part doesn’t hurt’ bit return actually drew tears out of me. I didn’t expect that.
I enjoyed the movie, but I don’t think it’s above criticism. I have plenty of nitpicks and a few moderately-sized issues.But this section of the review is baffling:“but it never explores how Indy feels about finally hanging up his hat as a professor.”I don’t understand how you could possibly watch the movie and have any doubt of Indy’s emotional state at the beginning of the story.
Absolutely! I think its very clear he’s unhappy at least (drinking a lot) and depressed at most. He’s become the cranky old man who (probably) often bangs on that ‘kid’s door with the baseball bat. I feel like the reviewer was willfully blind here.
Exactly. He’s a sad, lonely crank. It’s spelled out in very clear, broad strokes.
After seeing the movie, one thing that really stood out is that it feels like the studio stepped in to make the movie less accusatory toward the US government, given how the dialogue in Boyd Holbrook’s introduction goes so far out of its way to make clear he’s an independent contractor with no connection to the CIA.
Especially since it wasn’t the CIA that recruited NAzi scientist it was the OSS.
I found the movie pretty satisfying, myself.And I want a spin off where Wombat and Short Round are working at odds, and then have to team up near the end. I think Ford might be willing to do a cameo for that. Then I want sequels where they’re bickering partners always trying to one up one another…
SPOILERS!
SPOILERS!
SPOILERS!
I got to see it on Friday night and oh boy. What did I watch? We see Indy old and lazy as a grumpy old man near the start of the film and by the end he time travels to 214 AD? The contrast there. Silly! They really went there. I know these films have fantastical elements to them, but this was ridiculous even for an Indy film. I really thought Indy was going to stay in 214 AD too. I was like, please don’t do this movie. Thankfully they didn’t do that.
The de-aging looked pretty great, but Indy was too quiet for long periods of time. Indy always talks to himself about the situation he’s in or he groans to himself. This de-aged Indy seemed at times like a mute with long stretches of silence. You can tell the hardest part for the VFX was moving his mouth and lips. They used it sparingly.
I liked elements of this film and had fun with them, but I also found flaws here and there and was bothered by the overuse of CG. I will say the ending with Marion teared me up. But I kept thinking the surprise was going to be Mutt. Indy’s goddaughter tells Indy, I went back in time and told him not to enlist in the army. That would have been too cringy even for this movie.
“Between copy-paste Nazi villains whose means and motivations are muddy”Has any Indiana Jones movie delved any deeper into the motivation of its Nazi villains than being generally evil (or hangers on of evil who don’t care who helps them get the supernatural Macguffin)? I don’t think it’s a franchise that needs to start getting introspective about Nazis now, although this one had an unconventional plan for their side to win. And I think the means were reasonably well explained by “Operation Paperclip looked the other way so long as America got on the moon.”
“Dial Of Destiny doesn’t devote any substantial time acknowledging how much has changed for him.” His son dying in Vietnam after Mutt enlisted just to make Indy mad, his wife leaving him after their grief ruined their marriage, and his friend being driven crazy by the dial to the point that he ignored his letters. His students no longer being interested in his teachings to the point that he retires. Seems like a lot of change for me. What movie did you watch?
SPOILERSThe Big Bang Theory had that observation about Raiders that if Jones hadn’t gotten involved, the Ark still would have killed the Nazis. Didn’t they just do that again? The Dial would have always led the Nazi plane to the Siege of Syracuse and the Romans would always have brought the plane down.
I feel bad for Antonio Banderas. His non-character gets little time to shine and a poor ending.
It’s a very petty nit to pick, but I was super annoyed that we weren’t calling The Dial, “The Dial of Destiny.”
SPOILERSI didn’t appreciate that the Lance of Longinus mention went absolutely nowhere (because it was introduced as a fake). I flashed back to TV series Roar, felt happy, and then had to watch the rest of Dial of Destiny.
We got a water-displacement plot point and a “Eureka” exclamation, but not at the same time. Hmmm.
SPOILERSKilling “Mutt” off off-screen in the War was . . . a choice. I wished there had been some interplay—anything, really— between Indy’s grief and the role of the post-parade protestors in Indy’s fight against the baddies.
I really liked Helena and Teddy. I was hoping that the movie would position Helena as Indy’s successor the way that Crystal Skull did Mutt. But it really didn’t do that. Instead, it almost invited us to join Indy on further adventures???
SPOILERSMy read on the Dial is that it points the way only to temporal fissures that lead to the Siege of Syracuse, because Archimedes built it as a (self-fulfilling) call for help. I see the fissures as naturally occurring. So, just because the Dial can’t help you travel anywhere but the Siege doesn’t mean that modern science can’t use advanced mathematics (not the Dial) to find fissures that lead to other times. Basically, Indy and company are proof of time travel. And I feel like the movie doesn’t care about this AT ALL. Also, Helena is upset about possibly changing history. But the watch on Archimedes’ corpse and the propeller-phoenix on his tomb show that the time travel was always supposed to happen (it wasn’t paradoxical).
I loved it and thought it was a wonderful and very moving send off to the franchise. I appreciated Mangold’s more retrained direction- in style not story. Let’s just say I’m VERY happy I liked it, and think it must be a bummer for those who are disappointed.
You are a grub, the movie is fantastic people……