Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

[Eric Prime]

Discuss

[Avatree]

The time travel was cool (and the shot of the planes flying through the wormhole was BEAUTIFUL) and Harrison Ford just about made me cry when he said he wanted to stay in the past. His look of wonder and amazement at seeing the Romans was 🤌

 

The rest of the film... not so cool. So generic, lifeless and boring.

 

Marian and Sallah cameos were cringe. Should have actually used their characters for more than just cameos.

 

D

 

Edited June 28, 2023 by Avatree

[shachi86]

Antonio Banderas was in this for 5 minutes and got third billing!

[jb007]

Way better than some of the reviews made it out to be. It is a thoroughly enjoyable Indy movie. The action set pieces are very good.

 

Harrison Ford is excellent. Phoebe Waller-Bridge was good.

 

A-

[35MM-18]

Had a pretty good time with this. Some of the CGI is a little off, and there's one scene I think could've been cut, but neither of those things detracted from my experience. Williams was on fine form with the score, and I thought the costume design was on point. 

 

Ford was great, Waller-Bridge was good too. Olivier Richters was a little underused, though, but definitely intimidating (he's 2.18m/7'2" tall - he should definitely be cast in the next Bond film).

 

Overall - 7/10. Not on the level of the first three, but still enjoyable enough for me. 

[dudalb]

On 6/28/2023 at 3:43 PM, Avatree said:

The time travel was cool (and the shot of the planes flying through the wormhole was BEAUTIFUL) and Harrison Ford just about made me cry when he said he wanted to stay in the past. His look of wonder and amazement at seeing the Romans was 🤌

 

The rest of the film... not so cool. So generic, lifeless and boring.

 

Marian and Sallah cameos were cringe. Should have actually used their characters for more than just cameos.

 

D

 

Funny, that is how I felt about the first and third film of the most recent Star Wars Trilogy.

I was gong to see the movie tonight with fellow old fart Indy fans, but it going to have be postponed until Saturday or Sunday.

 

[Orestes]

B+. Maybe a little long, but Ford and Waller-Bridge were both good, and Williams still has it. Also, I chortled early on when it panned through Indiana's apartment after the flashback and I saw Mutt died on the way back to his home planet.

[LegionWrex]

So that was really solid! I think I had lowered my expectations going in cause of some of the more lukewarm reception, but I ended up having a blast with it. It's nowhere near the quality of the original 3 but not even Spielberg and company could match that trilogy when they tried in 08 so I'm not really sure what to say if you were genuinely expecting that. As it stands, instead, this is another solid installment in Mangold's "sad dad" movie saga that includes the like Logan, 3:10 to Yuma, and Ford v. Ferrari, and from that end I think it really works. Harrison Ford is genuinely fantastic here and I loved Phoebe Waller-Bridge as per expected (she's a queen), and while Mads Mikkelsen is an obvious choice for a bad guy he actually gets a lot to do here and I like how they portray him as completely out of his depth most of the time. The CGI ranged from eh to really good, though I do think some people will be turned off by the sheer amount of it - Crystal Skull has basically the same amount as this one does. If there is any issue I do have with it is that it runs a tad too long, and while I appreciate the fact it's like Last Crusade in that it's actually globetrotting some of this could have definitely been trimmed. Last 30 minutes are sublime though.

 

Overall think this was a good, solid time at the movies, even if I do think it's ultimately a little unnecessary. But we got it anyways, and it was pretty good!

[lilmac]

Indiana Jones 5 delivered. Harrison Ford's return as Indiana Jones was a nostalgic joyride, and seeing old characters return to the saddle was a treat. The third act was a standout, with unexpected twists. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

While I know the reviews have been mixed, I personally found the movie to be a great addition to the franchise. The nostalgia was effective in bringing back fond memories of watching the previous movies, and the film did a great job of capturing the feeling of adventure and wonder that the series is known for. The criticisms that the movie has received did not detract from my enjoyment of it whatsoever.

Overall, Indiana Jones 5 hit all the right buttons for me, and I would highly recommend it to fans of the series. It's a solid B+ in my book. 3rd best after Raiders and Crusade.

 

Edited July 1, 2023 by lilmac

[Webslinger]

"Official" review first, spoilery stray thoughts after.

 

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is a serviceable legacyquel, but given the potential it demonstrates and the franchise space it occupies, it feels like a letdown. There are numerous elements that work well over the course of the film’s two-and-a-half-hour running time, and it concludes on a fairly high note. The action sequences are sufficiently involving, the witty humor hits more often than not, and the script – despite its problems – does its best to at least simulate the spirit of its predecessors. There are also a few callbacks to the previous films and effective moments where director James Mangold taps into the pathos that has carried over from previous franchise in their 40-plus year run, making some heartstring-tugging moments feel earned rather than forced. However, despite its successes in spots, in falls short of its predecessors in numerous areas. Not the least of these areas is the absence of Steven Spielberg in the director’s chair; though Mangold is plenty competent, his approach lacks Spielberg’s verve and creativity. The massive running time is also an issue, as the narrative feels like it spins its wheels and accomplishes less in far more time than the previous films. The script is also a messy affair that feels like it is on the cusp of interesting ideas about aging, legacy, and moving past obsessions with the past, but it never really engages with these ideas on more than a surface level. Reprising the title role for the last (I assume?) time, Harrison Ford definitely feels older and wearier, but the moments where he allows his charm and confidence to seep through are fun; as good as he was in engaging with past roles in a more grizzled and experienced fashion in The Force Awakens and Blade Runner 2049, Ford’s seriousness feels a little out of place for Indiana Jones, but the moments where he leans into the iconography work. Phoebe Waller-Bridge is fun as Indy’s goddaughter and new companion, making up for the script’s shortcomings in her characterization with enough heart and humor to make the part work. Mads Mikkelsen is a little bit of a letdown as the villain, though that’s less to do with Mikkelsen’s performance – which has the menacing presence down pat – than with a script that is more interested in just making him a stock villain. As someone who enjoyed all the previous entries in this franchise thoroughly – even the much (and I’d say unfairly) maligned Kingdom of the Crystal Skull – I went into Dial of Destiny wanting to enjoy another Indiana Jones adventure, and while I had a good enough time with it to give it a light pass, I do wish it could have met its much vaster potential more fully.

 

B-

 

And now, the spoilery stray thoughts!
- It was kinda weird seeing an Indy movie without opening credits. I honestly half-expected a No Time to Die style opening credits sequence after the 20-odd minute prologue.

 

- Not gonna lie: I really wish the filmmakers had taken a page from Last Crusade and cast a younger actor as Indy for the prologue. The de-aging CGI on Ford is fine, but he still sounds and moves like an 80+-year-old man. That didn't bother me when it was done on Robert De Niro in The Irishman, but in an action sequence that is meant to be kinetic, Ford's difficulty in getting around while playing a man clearly intended to be several decades younger sticks out like a sore thumb.

 

- Unfortunately, I watched this in earshot of the worst in-theater movie talkers I've encountered in years. I saw this at a limited capacity pub cinema with my dad, and the layout basically has two pairs of seats together with aisles on either side, so you end up unavoidably within earshot of the people in the pair of seats next to you. So, we ended up sitting next to this hetero couple where the guy guffawed loudly at every even vaguely amusing moment and made the most inane comments. Like, we're talking "Oh, that's trouble!" when seeing anything that could put Indy/Helena/et al in danger. The most ironic piece is that both of them drank nothing but Pepsis all night, so they didn't even have the excuse of being drunk (as is usually the case when any patrons act up at this theater). But the best part, hands down, was hearing his bewilderment and "Wait... what... I don't know what's happening... What is this?" on the reveal that the plane had ventured back into ancient Syracuse. After spending the entire running time annoying us with the most basic comments imaginable, this guy legit could not wrap his head around the film doing something he did not expect. This is definitely a moment where my inner mean girl came out in full force, but I couldn't help but laugh that this only minorly clever twist left this surface-level vocal guy speechless.

[KC7]

B+ for me. For most of the first half I thought it was perfectly...fine. I hated the obvious CGI that, like Crystal Skull, made the world seem faker than in the first three films, and the action scenes went on too long. The best scene in the film was the conversation on the boat where Indy tells Helena what happened to Mutt; Ford really sold that. But it got better as it went along, and everything starting at the dynamite scene worked like gangbusters for me, so it went from solid to actually pretty good. Definitely a better ending for the series than Crystal Skull.

[Cmasterclay]

I was quite disappointed for most of the first half hoping that it would get better....and then it did get better! Starting with the scenes on the boat, it turns into a rollicking Indiana Jones adventure. Too bad they had three of the same chase scene stretched over an hour in the first half.

[Avatree]

On 6/30/2023 at 8:35 PM, dudalb said:

Funny, that is how I felt about the first and third film of the most recent Star Wars Trilogy.

 

 

Wow what a fascinating and insightful opinion.

[SoSaysI]

I really enjoyed this.  The car chase scene after the auction dragged a bit but other than that I thought everything else worked really well from start to finish.  Easily #3 for me in this series behind Raiders and Last Crusade.

[filmlover]

A fairly enjoyable conclusion to the Indiana Jones series, even though there's an overwhelming sense that it was made just for the sake of it and not because they had an actually compelling reason to revisit the character and his world one final time. It runs too long at 154 minutes, there's plot developments that don't have much of a payoff (did Indy having his name cleared from being accused of murdering his colleagues end up in the deleted scenes or did the filmmakers just forget about it?), and the attempts at emotion fall a bit flat. Killing off Mutt to create distance between Indy and Marion just came off as a cheap way of avoiding bringing Shia back when they could've written him out in other ways.

 

However, James Mangold does a reasonably solid job taking over from Spielberg and creates some thrilling sequences, even if the overreliance on CGI at times feels obvious due to Harrison Ford not being as mobile as he was before and therefore not as cool as the more practical stunts from the earlier movies. I overall didn't think this was either better or worse than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was.

 

Criticisms over his being too old for this aside, Ford has absolutely no problem inhabiting the character one final time. The CGI de-aging in the prologue is pretty convincing and turns into one of the highlights of the movie, I felt. He also connects well with Phoebe Waller-Bridge, though Mads Mikkelsen can't do much with a tragically underwritten antagonist part and I'm not sure why Antonio Banderas agreed to such a nothing role. Did he need the cash or did he just really want to appear in an Indiana Jones movie? 

 

Raiders of the Lost Ark remains a masterpiece and the pinnacle of blockbuster entertainment that none of the sequels have come close to surpassing (though even the worst Indiana Jones movie is still more distinctive and less generic than something like, say, Uncharted). This may not be the grand farewell that Indiana Jones and his iconic John Williams theme deserves, but it accomplishes its goal of giving the character a reasonably satisfying, if imperfect, ride off into the sunset.

 

B-

[Flopped]

Flawed but dumb fun. Way better than the average Marvel movie. B

[dudalb]

On 7/1/2023 at 3:36 PM, Avatree said:

Wow what a fascinating and insightful opinion.

Sorry, but Star Wars is not a sacred object to me, and I though TFA was a recycling of ANH, and Rise of Skywalker a recycling of Return of the Jedi. They had some fun moments, but overll were pretty bland.

[Godzilla]

I just saw this movie with my mom, I had a really great time and she loved it! There was a lot of action set pieces that delighted her and the movie was set in so many places and she enjoyed the settings so much. I liked the ending and was quite moved by it and she did as well. I don't get much of the hate in this movie at all. Harrison Ford is front and center in this movie and he has so many action scenes. Helena Shaw actually gets put in her place by him a couple times in the movie. Also I didn't dislike Helena Shaw's character at all, I thought she brought a lot of spunky energy that really fit well in the movie. Phoebe Waller-Bridge has charisma and she's having a hoot of a time in this film! There are instances when she might be grating a bit but it's mostly due to the writing and dialogue and that's like 1 or 2 moments in the movie. A very well made and entertaining movie imo. I thought they gave a fitting end to Indiana Jones but it doesn't totally end his journey. There's a room open there for another adventure with him. I'd recommend this movie to anyone really even those who aren't the biggest fans in the series, honestly they might like this even more. Extreme fans out there seem to have it in their heads on how the series should end and if it doesn't totally align with their vision then they get angry. I'd rank this 4th in the franchise but a very solid fourth because how good the first 3 films are. 

[IronJimbo & Sheldon's Son]

It was stupid and had a lot of eyerolling scenes but it wasn't boring like some people have said which is the worst sin for a blockbuster. However they did kill Puss in Boots so it gets a 0/10

 

Spoiler

Okay for real though, probably 5/10

 

[db105]

I love the original three movies but I didn't much like Crystal Skull, so between that, Ford's age and the lukewarm reviews, I went with low expectations. However, I was quite happy with the movie, even though it had some flaws. I had a good time and it felt to me like an Indiana Jones movie (unlike Crystal Skull, which, despite following the formula more closely, there was always something a bit off for me).

 

For me, this movie was not as good as the originals but better than CS:

 

Some thoughts:

 

* I loved the initial set piece. Seriously, I watched it with a big grin on my face. It was like getting classic Indy back, and I wouldn't have minded a whole movie like that. The rejuvenation effects looked good to me. I know some people complained, but I'm not seeing their point. However, I watched the Spanish dub, so I have no opinion about the complaint that rejuved-Ford still had his old-sounding voice in the original dub.

 

Maybe he did not look exactly the same as Harrison Ford looked in the 80s movies (I don't know, a bit more clean-cut, perhaps?) but it was good enough to completely avoid that uncanny valley effect when it looks almost right but not quite. It was a thrilling extended sequence,

 

* After that, the pace of the movie is different from the other movies. There is a lot of action, of course, but the middle felt a bit slower, or perhaps just more like routine action. I did not get bored (even though the movie is long at 2 hours and a half!), but it was not quite as thrilling as the 80s movies. Which is natural, I think, because Ford is 80, and I think such a relentless pace would not have worked, unless it was all with rejuvenation like in the beginning.

 

* Mads Mikkelsen was really good as the villain.

 

* I had never seen Phoebe Waller-Bridge, not having watched any of her previous work. I liked her, though. I thought she brought in a kind of energy that helped, given Ford's age. Unlike other people, i did not have a problem with her acting or the concept of her character, although I did have a problem with the way her character arc was written: she starts being after the money. However, they did not make her one of those roguish characters who are looking only after their own interests but when push comes to shove they have their heart in the right place. Instead, her heart was in the wrong place, when she locked Indy up with the nazi assassins so that she could escape more easily. Then, at the end, she is risking her life to safe Indy and she's supposedly redeemed, but, how exactly did she go from point A to point B? What are the redeeming moments when she gradually realizes that there are more important things than gain. Why did she care about Indy at the end when she was happy to cause his death at the beginning? I only got the conversation with Indy at the boat, which went in that direction, I think, but it was just too quick and too little. As long as the movie was, a bit more of that character building for her would have been good.

 

* I liked Harrison Ford here, more than I did in Crystal Skull. I thought he looked too old in Skull. Here, for obvious reasons, he looks older, but I thought the movie adjusted well to that fact, instead of pretending that it was the same as in the 80s. At the same time, I thought his action scenes were convincing, and his punches still looked serious instead of making me feel like he might break in two. I would have preferred if he looked like he was having more fun, but this was more the writing than his acting, I think. 

 

* PWB was the co-lead in this movie, more so than any of the characters accompanying Indy in any of the other movies. However, in general I did not feel that it was at the expense of Indy's role. I thought it made sense that he would have another character to take some of the weight of the action, because 80-year-old Ford doing the huge amount of physical scenes that he did in the older movies might have been too much. The only moment where I felt that she was built up at the expense of Indy was at the boat, when she solves the riddle for the bad guys and then gives the explosive to Indy. Indy should have got that non-physical scene, particularly since so many of the action stunts went to Helena. Let's not forget that the title was "Indiana Jones and the DoD", not "Indiana Jones, Helena Shaw and the DoD". 

 

* More importantly, I did not feel that this movie took away from Indy's status as a hero. I am one of those who are pissed off at Disney for their handling of Luke Skywalker in Star Wars, so I was wary of the reports about PWB's protagonism. But no, Indy is still a hero and is still kicking ass as much as it's possible for a character played by an 80-year-old actor.

 

* The kid (Teddy) was cold. He was even more money-focused than Helena, and he killed that nazi guy during the underwater scene without being traumatized. I don't get why they established that he couldn't swim when he was on the ship, only to have him do that underwater stunt later. I liked how he cared about Helena, though.

 

* Thankfully, no awful CGI scenes like Mutt swinging from tree to tree.

 

* The time travel... Yeah, it worked for me. Quite thrilling, the whole thing in the past. I was quite wary of this concept, because in Skull, the whole mental powers/aliens/extradimensional beings thing did not quite work for me. I felt it was too much. But this was a more solid story than Skull, and I thought it was enjoyable and fit better within Indy's world.

 

* John Rhys-Davies had nice cameos. Karen Allen is given very little screen time, and only appears in the final scene. However, when they did the "tell me where it doesn't hurt thing" I got emotional. I liked that.

 

* I have read people saying that Skull was a better ending for Indy, with a son and getting married with Marion. Here he ends up with Marion, but his son is dead. While it's true that Skull's ending was happier for Indy, I liked this more as a way to say goodbye to the character, because this movie leaves me with better sensations. And, regarding Mutt, well, loss is also a part of life.

 

* I have also read Indy should have stayed in the past. I don't agree. He should have stayed if the alternative was to be alone and miserable, but he belongs with Marion. They deserve to be happy together in their final years. I did not like that PWB knocked him out to take him back, though. I feel that this was a character moment and that, while others may have tried to persuade him, ultimately it was for him to make the decision.

 

All in all, a solid effort. It has some flaws, but on the whole I was happy. It was better than I expected. It can't be easy, making an action movie with an 80-year-old lead, with a character who is mostly about thrilling action set pieces... They did well. It's a shame that this movie is failing at the box office while Skull, a weaker movie, made money. But, anyway, life is not always fair, and for us fans I think we have been treated to a good final Indy movie.

 

I wouldn't personally mind if the role was recast after Harrison Ford dies and we got more movies with a young Indy, but if that happens that will be many years in the future. For the moment, this goodbye leaves me with a smile, unlike Crystal Skull.

(Sorry if you loved Crystal Skull, I did not mean to bash your favorite movie, I just didn't like it myself).

Edited July 23, 2023 by db105