Yes, "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" Is Mostly Shiznit
Mmmmkay. So. Indy 5. I felt a bit of trepidation going into this one because first of all, as those of you who have been reading Taking Up More Room know, I don’t usually review movies made under the Disney umbrella, including what comes out of Twentieth Century Fox and Lucasfilm from 2019 on. Indiana Jones is kind of a wobbler, though, because while it checks a no-go box, Paramount still has the distribution rights.
The other thing is that the pre-release reviews I’ve heard and seen have all said this movie is utter trash, that it elevates Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s character, Helena Shaw, it disrespects Indiana Jones, and it sets up Helena to be Indy’s heir apparent. Since they’ve been making these judgement calls as far back as March and they got pretty specific in their criticisms, I had to keep telling myself to have an open mind.
It only took about five minutes for my mind to close up again, though, and it wasn’t just for the reasons those other critics brought up. While the movie isn’t as terrible as I thought it was going to be (and I just saw The Room so there’s that) Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny feels like it was edited with a hacksaw, as does the character of Helena, who goes from insufferable to idiotic to indulgent around Indy.
The movie’s basic plot involves Indy trying to keep evil Nazi scientist Dr. Voller from getting ahold of the Antikythera mechanism, which gives the bearer the ability to travel through time. Problem is, Helena wants it too because all she can see are dollar signs, and when Indy calls her out on it, she fires back, “Don’t talk to me about morality, you ageing grave robber!”
Um, lady? Why did you get degrees in archaeology if you detest it so much?
Like any girl boss, Helena rescues Indy several times, as if Indy’s too much of doddering old relic to get himself out of a jam, although she gets less and less snarky as the movie goes on. Her character progression would be a completely natural thing but she and Indy just don’t seem to like each other—nothing about this relationship feels organic. It all screams RETAKES and RECUTS.
Speaking of inorganic, de-aged Indy is creepy. He might look young, but he blinks funny and he still sounds like older Indy, not to mention he doesn’t have Harrison Ford’s classic cocky twinkle, and it’s exceedingly weird.
What really bugged me, though, is this movie plays fast and loose with history and reality. Like, really fast and loose. And I’m not even talking about the Archimedes aspect of the plot. In the first half-hour Indy’s wearing a pilfered Nazi officer’s uniform and he’s clearly very convincing because the underlings are Sieg Heil-ing him all over the place, but a Nazi officer would never wear his collar open like Indy does. Also, his fedora doesn’t come off, ever, even when he’s hanging upside down off the side of the train.
Oh, and a big part of that first thirty minutes shows British bombers suddenly appearing despite thick cloud cover. Most of the time this didn’t happen—if there was cloud cover, a mission would be postponed because these guys couldn’t just fly above the clouds—they had to stay pretty low, not only for bombing accuracy, but they had to make sure they were in the right place because navigation was not easy, especially in that era (Amelia Earhart, ironically, enough, championed the idea of painting town names on roofs because it was so hard for pilots to maintain their bearings).
And with the exception of the Spitfire and other fighter planes, most military aircraft of that time were designed to fly at an altitude of around ten thousand feet. So no, flying in cloudy weather would not have been a thing.
Plus, keep in mind that there’s a Nazi train thundering through the countryside and not only do the Brits make the train stop and plant the Union Jack on it, but they were somehow able to get down to the ground sans parachutes. Yep. All of a sudden we see them standing on the locomotive cheering and waving as if they teleported.
The present-day sections don’t improve much. The first thing we see Older Indy do is yell the equivalent of “Hey you kids, get off my lawn!” at a bunch of beatniks who are blasting The Magical Mystery Tour at 8 AM. Then he goes off to Hunter College to teach archaeology to a bunch of dead-eyed students and warn them that finals are fast approaching.
Meanwhile, the tickertape parade for the returning Apollo 11 astronauts is going on outside and Neil Armstrong is apparently driving his own car in the parade. We know that because a German thug pulls him out of it while in pursuit of Indy.
Sigh. I don’t think the real Mr. Armstrong would have stood for that, to be honest. Just a hunch.
And we can’t forget the part when Indy gets shot in the shoulder right around the location of a major vein and somehow doesn’t bleed out or have his arm’s range of motion impaired in any way despite being in a high stress stuation.
Heck, when Indy’s dad, Henry Jones, Sr. got shot in the stomach in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade he was flat on his back and fading fast, giving the quest to find the Holy Grail some real emotional urgency and showing the reconciliation between Indiana Jones and his dad.
We don’t get that in Dial of Destiny. In fact, after probably an hour or two Helena has to deck Indy to keep him from doing something rash and stupid and because he needs medical treatment he can’t get in the past. So now Indy’s wound is important all of a sudden? I’ve taken first aid, although I’m no expert, but this is a little too far-fetched even for a movie.
There were so many errors in Dial of Destiny that after about an hour or so I got numb to it and spent the rest of the movie silently sighing, making faces, and glowering at the screen. People around me were laughing, but I couldn’t tell if it was because the movie was ludicrous or they were having fun. I hope it was both.
And what’s so sad is that a really good movie could have been built around the real Antikythera mechanism, which is so delicate it falls apart if anyone touches it. Lucasfilm seriously missed the boat in so many ways.
At least Indiana Jones looks really good, and John Williams’s score is awesome as usual, although it seemed very minimal and not as integrated into the film as past projects have been. Both Mr. Williams and Indiana Jones deserve better than this.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is currently in theaters. Rated PG-13.
My grade: D+
Principal Cast: Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Antonio Banderas, Karen Allen, John Rhys-Davies, Shaunette Renee-Wilson, Thomas Kretschmann, Toby Jones, Boyd Holbrook, Olivier Richter, Ethann Isidore, Mads Mikkelsen, Martin McDougall, Alaa Safi, Francis Chapman, Alfonso Mandia, Chase Brown, Nasser Memarzia
Directed by James Mangold.
Written by Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth, and David Koepp.