Indiana Jones y el dial del destino

"Raiders of the Lost Ark" is on my top 10 list of all-time favorite movie. I did not feel that "Dial of Destiny" gave a proper send off to the francise. It seemed like the first half of the movie is nothing but over the top chase scenes about trying to get possession of the Dial. That first half does not invest time to plant motivation so the viewer will even care about the Dial and who gets possession of it. Also, the Helena character is pretty unlikeable. Her passion is in the wrong place. Indiana is at odds with Helena for most of the movie. They do not make a good team. And then Indiana is a deflated version of Indiana that is kind of depressing. And to top it all off, there is no sense of fun and comedy in the movie. I hope writers have not forgotten how to write a good adventure story. "Dial of Destiny" misses the mark on many levels. And it kind of bothered me how much unnecessary killing there was in the movie. That is not family friendly. I wanted to really like "Dial of Destiny", but as the movie was progressing, I had to admit the movie was just not working.

It was ok as a romp to not take seriously but it was spoilt by Phoebe Waller-Bridge's character, Helena, who seemed to be smiling incessantly. Very 1-sided character I disliked, and given the amount of screen time, spoilt the movie.

Chases were fun if not ridiculous: would three-wheeled vehicles be able to travel that fast round corners without toppling over?

I felt many of the action sequences relied too heavily on computer generation making them feel unrealistic. Some of the vehicle manoeuvres and the shooting of the characters within them didn't ring true and took my attention away from the movie.

Glad there weren't be anymore, even though I grew up with Raiders.

In The Monkey's Paw (spoilers for a 100 years old horror classic, I guess), the protagonists, after the death of a loved one, use a cursed artifact to bring him back, only to find a shambling undead monstrosity knocking at their door.

Being a movie nerd in these days is a similar experience: the franchises you loved as a kid keep coming back, and for a while, maybe after a decent trailer, you are happy and optimistic... but then you see them and regret their return.

In fact, Hollywood just can't let a beloved series end at the right moment. Alien should have ended with Aliens, and it got a diarrhea of terrible sequels, prequels and spin-offs; Terminator with T2, and I've lost count of the reboots; Star Wars with Return of the Jedi, and it got the awful sequels (I'm giving the prequels a pass because they at least tried to tell an interesting story)...

... and, of course, Indiana Jones should have ended with The Last Crusade. It would have been an amazing trilogy (I have my issues with Temple of Doom but oh boys, is it looking better in retrospect), and now it has not one but two pointless sequels.

So, is this one better or worse than Skull? I'd say more or less on par: not terrible and unwatchable but clunky and mediocre.

Ford was my favorite actor as a kid ("Imagine being both Indy and Han Solo!"), and he gives it all here, but the sad truth is, he was already too old in Skull, and that was 15 years ago.

Mangold is a solid director but Indy movies live and die on the strength of their set-pieces, and he isn't prime Steven Spielberg. Then again, who is? Not even Spielberg himself nowadays, since the set-pieces in Skull already sucked.

Mangold keeps the camera too close so we do not get the geography of the action; his set-pieces are all momentum and no triumphant release. See the scene with the underwater relic and the eels, a cool premise which peters out into nothing. Also, the protagonists (especially Indy) rarely if ever do anything COOL to resolve the action - a crack of the whip, a last-second dive: they are just there, ping-ponging between different obstacles.

Story construction is bloated, with pointless characters (the governative agents, the Moroccan mobster), setups without payoffs ("continental drift") and endless tedious exposition: a scene with Waller-Bridge (moderately less annoying than I was expecting, but it was a low bar) smugly decrypting a tablet with a clue feels like the longest ten hours I've ever spent in a movie theater.

Here's a hint, scriptwriters: characters dealing with treasure hunt clues is only interesting if we, the audience, can also SEE the clue and GUESS the possible answer. Otherwise, it's like watching someone on the bus mumble as he does his Sudoku, and you can't even peek over his shoulder.

Dial of Destiny takes a weird turn in the last act and I sort of wish they had embraced the sheer cheesiness of it. I enjoyed a couple of scenes (the prologue is decent enough), but, if you absolutely need a good Indy sequel, play the old adventure game The Fate of Atlantis.

5/10.

With a heavy heart, I think I have to concede that Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is not good. It's probably even bad, because even the parts that are sort of entertaining ultimately disappoint.

Take for example the prologue with a de-aged Harrison Ford. The technology used to do it is impressive, and only looked awkward in a couple of shots for me. It's Indy adventuring during the end of World War II, and it almost captures the adventure/action you'd want. However, it's so dimly lit that barely anything can be seen. It's probably to disguise the de-aging, but it's disappointing. The stuff you can see isn't particularly great, but it fares better than the next couple of big action scenes.

These are spaced out over the next 80 to 90 minutes. Said 80 to 90-minute stretch is honestly very boring. Harrison Ford is trying, and John Williams' score is pretty good. I usually like Phoebe Waller-Bridge, but her character didn't work for me. Barely any of the humor landed. The action is incredibly dull and quite often poorly shot. Ford himself isn't in much of the action, which is understandable, but it also begs the question of why they even bothered trying to make an action movie with an 80-year-old man.

I swear characters enter a hotel at night, and they come out the front door five minutes later and it's the middle of the day. Why did they bring John Rhys-Davies back without giving him anything to do? Why was Antonio Banderas in this for like, five minutes? Why do they think audiences will care that Banderas and Toby Jones play "friends" of Indiana Jones, even if they've never been seen or mentioned before this film? Why does Hollywood keep wasting Mads Mikkelsen?

The final half-hour is sort of fun, but it concludes very abruptly and awkwardly. Some people will hate where the movie goes regardless, but I thought it came close to giving the whole thing a pulse. The final scene itself sounds like it should work on paper, but it did nothing for me emotionally. As I walked home, I liked the movie less and less, the more I thought about it.

It's so lifeless and uninspired, and even if maybe a third of it is passable, the rest is a combination of boring and baffling. Even if you're a big fan of the series, I wouldn't bother. This is a good deal worse than the other four.

I want to live in a world where Indiana Jones is a trilogy and stopped with The Last Crusade.

Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny has all the issues that have plagued other summer blockbusters this year. It is overly reliant on CGI and expects nostalgia to see it through.

James Mangold is a competent director but he's no Spielberg. It's almost like he's read a guide to making an Indiana Jones movie and missed the mark. There is no heart to the movie which is the Spielberg spark it's missing.

The CGI is horrific with the worst saved for Harrison Ford's face. The movie is like 90% CGI and may as well have been like animation at times. Past characters are written out in abhorrent fashion and threw away without a care.

The last 30 minutes. Well...they nuked the fridge. (Bring back the aliens)