Review of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023) by Dharma2 — 30 Jun 2023

In today’s age, making an Indiana Jones film is infinitely harder. The original trilogy are classics that have inspired so many other filmmakers and their creations. Despite the lavish budget spent on the film and its action sequences, most of this film felt derivative of the original trilogy and many films that were inspired by the legendary hero.

Let’s get to the negative parts: The Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls sadly started a trend that was continued in this instalment: its overuse of CGI. Indy is essentially an ‘analog series’. Cruise with his MI series and the last batch of Bond films understood this.

The action sequences sadly gave a sense of an uncanny valley as many of the sequences are given this treatment, more so in the 1st half of this film. However, putting that aside, the film makers and Ford themselves have a great passion for this character and it shows.

Despite what may be an untold amount of studio interference, Mangold and co were allowed go off the rails in the 3rd act and took Indy in a different direction, and this saves the picture for me. Ford himself gave this role his all, knowing that this will be his final hurrah as the adventurer.

So, is it worth a watch? For sure. But like any other older music bands whose new music has never reached the peak of their original works, so is the ‘fate’ of the Indiana Jones series.