Now In Release: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Okay, so I know it’s been literally months since I’ve written anything here—production on WHM always takes priority and we’ve been hella busy since, well, Christmas? But I’m trying to find ways to train my brain to get back here to write stuff with more frequency, if only for myself and the therapeutic vibes that writing can give me—but maybe also due to a severe need to separate myself from social media quite a bit. As George Carlin was known to yell, “It’s bad for ya!” I think this movie was the prime opportunity for me to dive back in here because I wanted to go a bit long on Indy 5 and I always feel a little weird about constructing huge screeds to dump on Letterboxd, love that site though I do. Anyway, here we go with, yes, spoilers a-plenty:

What can I say here, folks? I dug it. Perhaps that puts me on some list, or maybe I fall out of favor with some of the people jerking themselves off online over who can come up with the sharpest knock against some of the CGI, but give me the death penalty if you must, I had fun at the movies! As someone who's taken in most, if not all, of the popcorn blockbusters so far this summer, this is one of the only times I was engaged, entertained, and not feeling like I was watching fucking paint dry—looking at you, Fast X.

For whatever it's worth, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny felt more like an Indiana Jones movie than Crystal Skull did for me. Speaking of, I know there’s been this reevaluation of that movie recently, especially in the lead-up to this, and sorry, I still don’t care for it, folks. I re-watched it a couple weeks ago hoping to find something new and interesting, and while I think it’s grand you may love it, I won’t be swayed, so save your breath.

That said, I think part of why this felt more Indy for me was due to the number of people we have on the adventure along with Dr. Jones. Unlike Crystal Skull, this adventure party is not crammed with four other actors (or three, depending on when someone is “lying about being a double”), including one who they clearly were pushing to have his own spin-off. No, for the most part, it's pretty much Helena, and then you also get a little Teddy, who functions as an older, less excitable Short Round, but even he is captured at one point allowing time for more one-on-one with Ford and Waller-Bridge. It was nice seeing the parallel between how Teddy came into Helena's life and how she took him in, a bit like how Indy takes in Short Round after his family is killed in a bombing. Other than that, it’s just the Nazis hot on their trail, with yes, a quick trip to visit Antonio Banderas, but he doesn’t join up and stick around—quite the opposite. Also, Sallah stays in New York.

I thought Phoebe Waller-Bridge as Helena was great. It's an actual character that's dynamic and complicated, not easy to put into one box or another. She's funny, capable, and has her own morally dubious motivations. Also, when she gets freaked out by a franchise staple Hall of Icky Things, she's grossed out just like any of us would be and then gets on with her life. She doesn't stop the movie dead screaming and gagging over them like a previous franchise character.

Speaking of Teddy, Ethann Isidore was charming and fun; while he's certainly less memorable than Short Round as far as youth in Indiana Jones movies, he's a much better character than Mutt. And by the way, the character's got one of the most brutal kills in the movie! That’s the kind of Kid Power I’ll show up for.

Then there's Mads. The one thing that all five of these films has (credit where credit’s due, Blanchett rules in Crystal Skull) is a solid-ass villain and Mikkelsen fills the role perfectly. It's an indication of his skills as an actor that he's portrayed (among other things) three huge villain roles (Le Chiffre, Hannibal, and now Voller) and each one of them feels uniquely different and villainous in their own way. There's a large difference between playing a Bond villain and an Indiana Jones villain and Mikkelsen more than understands that. He's chilling here, not Hannibal chilling mind you, as a Nazi who thinks Hitler was a total loser who didn't take it far enough. Wowza, what a guy.

And what do you say about Ford? Yeah, it's a bit weird watching an 80 year-old fella lumbering around on a big adventure like this, but also, isn't that kind of the point of the story? He’s determined to drink away his remaining days on Earth going through the motions in the lecture hall (where the girls are no longer drawing on their eyelids to get his attention), while sleeping in his living room chair between threats to the next door neighbors, when he is begrudgingly called back into action—admittedly this time for reasons the film ultimately abandons, which is unfortunate. So, yeah, I was able to buy this old timer getting out of his recliner for one last jaunt.

I love that Indy is completely uninterested in celebrating the moon landing. As an archeologist, his career, and indeed his whole life, has been devoted to studying the past. It makes perfect sense he would have zero interest in our future. Which is why I think the third act is a perfectly fitting and touching one.

In a move that I'm sure will be about as divisive as they come, I was a bit nervous when that plane actually goes back into the past 2,000 years. But the way they tee it up, with Indy yelling about the continental drift, Voller freaking out because he knows Jones is right, and then the slow reveal of the boats and weaponry, all felt very Twilight Zone to me, specifically the episode "The Odyssey of Flight 33," where a commercial airliner, bound for New York City, flies through a burst of light and upon reaching Manhattan island, finds it completely covered in dinosaurs. Does “The Odyssey of Flight 33” being one of my favorite TZ episodes factor into how I feel about this film’s third act? It’s possible.

What worried me was how long this jump into the past was going to continue. I think my biggest knock against the film beyond the CGI (which didn't work in a bunch of spots, yes, but I've seen worse (::cough:: The Flash ::cough, cough::)) is, of course, the run time. Things were already running long and I was deeply concerned we were about to get 20 minutes of Indy, Helena, Teddy, and that poor nameless pilot, all sitting around a fire shooting the shit with Archimedes. But no, Helena, despite Indy's pleas for her to let him stay in the past and die, knocks the old fella out and brings him back to 1969, forcing him to reconcile with the current state of his Present.

Speaking of, I think I had to suffer the entirety of Mutt Williams in Crystal Skull just so I could get his death here that functions as a successful emotional point of conflict for this film. The script eases into the reveal (after having someone mention that Indy was divorced from his wife and "lost" his son) that Mutt was indeed killed in Vietnam. Not only that, he was only there after enlisting to possibly spite his father. Indy and Marion (or probably more just Indy) never being able to properly address their loss, leading to the end of their marriage is a heartbreaking, real thing, devoid of magic, mysticism or even ancient aliens. It’s an actual human tragedy, and it’s a place this series doesn’t really journey toward in other entries. It was a welcomed dramatic gear shift.

When propositioned with the biggest question a person who has devoted their entire lives to history could ever be asked—What would you do if you could go back in time?—Indy doesn't offer up any ancient time period, place or person. No, he says he'd go back in time and stop his son from volunteering to go to Vietnam.

The move to kill off Mutt Williams in such a way holds so much more weight than any kind of throwaway line like, "Oh, Mutt's off studying at Oxford," or some nonsense. He has died tragically, for nothing, and it's hurt and emotionally scarred his parents (nearly) beyond repair. It actually means something, it actually punches you in the gut, and I worry this particular story point will be lost in the race to complain about a Ford-on-horseback deepfake. Priorities, folks.

Ultimately, I think there's something quite beautiful about allowing this character who has devoted his life to studying, appreciating, and, sure, pillaging history to, for a brief moment, actually get the opportunity to live that very history. Ford plays these moments extremely well and for anyone saying he's slouching through this movie not giving a shit, I think you watched the wrong performance.

Also, I gotta hand it to the brutality in this movie. The entire train sequence at the beginning, including that wild anti-aircraft gun taking out about two dozen nazis in one fell swoop, was great, but you've also got a lot of point-blank, cold-blooded murder, mostly thanks to Boyd Holbrook's Klaber who is hilariously (and correctly) referred to by Shaunette Renée Wilson's Mason as a "trigger-happy cracker." Holbrook is quickly becoming the first actor the switchboard puts you through to when casting directors are dialing 1-900-SCUMBAG. Sorry, James Remar, but there's a new ice-cold maniac in town.

You also get that totally horrific death with Olivier Richters's Hauke who gets handcuffed to a piece of metal underwater and left to drown by, what's that? A 13 year-old kid? Hot damn, Teddy, hot damn.

Then there are the deaths of both Klaber and Voller as their time traveling plane is shot out of the sky by Greek and Roman projectiles. It's a credit to the movie that neither villain here has any kind of one last scare moment. Especially Mikkelsen, you’d think, would be propping himself up to get one last shot off or something, but no, these two motherfuckers are capital-D Dead. And in both instances, we get proof of death by way of these wild closeups of, you guessed it, Crispy Critters! Both these nazi scumbags are charred up real good, looking like BBQ Chinese spare ribs. Now that's good nazi-killing!

You may now be thinking, "Shit, man, this guy's running long," and you are correct. But it's only because, maybe just for myself, I had to list a bunch of stuff I really liked about the movie—but certainly not all of the reasons. This morning I Logged On, only to find the usual cynicism and negativity that I expected, and I was already feeling its immense power souring the positive feelings I have had about the film since last night. I needed to jot this stuff down before I was poisoned by the power of social media.

Because yes, I had problems with the film, some of which I've already addressed. The CGI isn't always up to snuff, especially during the horse riding scene, yes, but life's too short to hang one's entire opinion about a film on a bit of not-great CGI. For what it's worth, I thought the de-aging was okay, although it’s obvious why they set that entire sequence in the dead of night. As my wife pointed out, de-aged profiles are harder to pull off than de-aged head-on shots, and yeah, shit looks a bit janky, and Mads didn’t need to get the CGI facelift they gave him. But for the entirety of that 15-20 minute opening, I wasn't distracted by it. If you go in ready to look for all the zippers in the monster's suit, you're not watching the full Creature from the Black Lagoon and you're gonna be hard pressed to enjoy yourself.

So I guess that's what I'm saying here: warts and all, I turned myself over entirely to Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and I don't regret a fucking thing. Happy retirement, Indy, you’ve certainly earned it.

AMC Lincoln Square IMAX. DCP.