'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny' Review

Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here.

Nobody knows anything…Not one person in the entire motion picture field knows for certainty what’s going to work. Every time out it’s a guess and, if you’re lucky, an educated one. - William Goldman

There’s a great YouTube video called “One Way to Deconstruct There Will Be Blood - Or Any Movie” that emphasizes the importance of the cut in cinema and how we as viewers can change our way of processing film on a cut-by-cut basis. Hitchcock called the phrase “cut” an inadequate word to describe the process, preferring the word “assembly,” further likening a director’s job as that of a mosaic artist stitching together pieces that only when viewed as a whole could be fully appreciated.

The Indiana Jones films, when watched in this light, are masterclasses in directing and editing, especially when you see how Spielberg ratchets up the tension with a few well placed cuts in an action sequence. Whether he’s introducing a character or necessary exposition he always found a way to make it interesting and engaging to the audience.

It’s also what sets Spielberg’s films apart from all of his imitators, who struggle to copycat similar set-pieces and situations from said films without understanding that it’s not what you shoot, but how you shoot it that makes it iconic, entertaining, and memorable.

And that’s why a film like Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was doomed from the moment Spielberg left the director’s chair (citing issues with the script): one needs a pretty damn compelling reason to make one without him, and unfortunately this film does nothing to justify its own existence. Both Last Crusade and Crystal Skull- despite what you may think about the latter- gave Indiana Jones a meaningful ending where he deals with both his own father issues and also with being a father, and this film adds nothing of real value to that arc. Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf) is notably absent from this film, and although it wasn’t necessary to bring him back it is strange that the relationship between Indiana and his goddaughter, Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) that takes central place in this film is just a poor retread of Indy and Mutt’s relationship in the last film. (As Jeremy Jahns aptly pointed out in his recent review, whether it’s Indy or Han Solo, Lucasfilm has a real problem with letting Harrison Ford play a good father or husband). It also would’ve made more sense for her to be the daughter of Marcus Brody, a character the audience already has fond memories of, than a completely new character from Indy’s past that he’s never spoken of? But that could’ve meant ILM resurrecting Denholm Elliott from the grave, so maybe that’s a bullet dodged.

I really like director James Mangold (Logan, Ford v Ferrari) , and I personally give him the benefit of the doubt on this film considering all the stories we’ve heard about Disney interfering with Lucasfilm’s movies and not giving them enough time. But also, with all the delays there was time to get this script right, and one wonders if there was a version of this film in its first draft that was great. (Note: David Koepp, frequent collaborator with Spielberg, retains writing credit on this film from when Spielberg was working on it. It’s unclear what aspects are from that original version).

Harrison Ford honestly gives a good performance in this, but some of the dialogue he is forced to spew out just feels like it was given a once-over by an AI. (“I don't believe in magic. But a few times in my life, I've seen things. Things I can't explain. And I've come to believe it's not so much about what you believe, it's how hard you believe it”). It also goes without saying that part of the fun of these films is pairing Indy with characters he either doesn’t get along with or has good banter with, and unfortunately neither Waller-Bridge’s Helena or her kid accomplice Teddy (Ethann Isidore) give much in that regard. Much of the film’s script is devoted to showing how smart and capable Helena is and how she really doesn’t need Indy to rescue her, but in fact Indy needs her to rescue him.

Deus ex machinas are given out to the characters like presents on Christmas and with all the CGI there’s no real sense of danger for any of the characters (the original films’ trademark violence is watered down that I think this film could actually be rated PG and get away with it). The villains are by-the-numbers Nazis and not even Mads Mikkelsen can make his lead antagonist any more interesting than what was given to him on paper. The most meaningful cameo is reserved for the end and by then it’s too late, although it’s last-minute inclusion does prevent the film from completely destroying Indy’s arc as established in the last film.

The most damning thing about this whole film is just how bland and generic the action sequences are, and it’s why I brought up the video in the beginning of this essay: this film uses what seems like 100 cuts per major sequence for what Spielberg could do in about half as many (or sometimes, in just one shot). This is actually pretty standard for most action movies these days, as filmmakers rely more and more on second-unit coverage and digital trickery to “fake” stunts, and in a year where John Wick 4 knocked it out of the park with its fantastic action and stunt-work it just makes this film seem all the more baffling (Wick 4 was made for a cool $100 million and is the highest grossing film in its franchise while Indiana Jones will need to make $300 million just to break even).

For a franchise that started out as a love letter to analog, low-budget serial filmmaking, it turns out that just throwing a lot of money at an aging star will not guarantee you a great film, which may as well be the lesson of this past decade of movies. In a year where the $220 million Flash movie and $200 million Ant-Man movie are losing their respective studios hundreds of millions of dollars, the lesson that desperately needs to be learned for the future of Hollywood in general is that if the industry is going to be at all remotely sustainable, excessive budgets like these need to be slashed and refocused around paying good writers, rather than stars, what they deserve.

RATING: 1/5 stars

ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS:

-Funnily enough (without spoiling it), the MacGuffin for this film is something that George Lucas swore in a 2008 interview that they’d never do.

- It’s apparently been rumored for a while that Lucasfilm head honcho Kathleen Kennedy is out after this film, as she hoped to go out on a good note with the franchise she started on as a producer back in 1981. May end up being a more sour note to leave on considering this movie is not projected to crack the $100 million ceiling this weekend like Crystal Skull did.