Review of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023) by Moviemitch96 — 01 Jul 2023

*sigh* well here we go. In this fifth and supposedly (and VERY MUCH hopefully) final outing for the famed archeologist, Indiana Jones finds himself teaming up with his estranged goddaughter (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) in the late 60s to uncover an ancient dial artifact belonging to Archemedes that can supposedly *rolls eyes*.

.. Allow time travel. So, he must stop a group of Nazis from uncovering the artifact before they can travel back in time to the early days of WWII to reverse their defeat. Now I love Indiana Jones and his adventures as much as the next person.

Of course, that only applies to the first three films, which are far and out the best and most superior. I'm with the majority of people who'd much rather forget the fourth film ever even happened. So therefore, you can probably imagine my reluctance and skepticism going into this one.

I often made jokes years ago when the film was first announced as being in development that it would be called 'Indiana Jones and the Quest for the Missing Dentures at the Nursing Home'... Cause let's face it, Harrison Ford's no spring chicken anymore to say the least.

Add to this the fact that not only was Spielberg not returning to finish things off himself, but instead James Mangold was brought on board (who I always thought seemed like such a random choice of a director for a film like this.

) And if that STILL didn't sound bad enough, hearing that they were going to de-age Ford for several scenes obviously didn't sit well with me at all, since that sort of technological and creative choice for a film is always either hit or miss (it was very much a miss in this case.

) In case you can't already tell, I did not enjoy this film very much at all. What started off as a promising enough first half quickly took a nosedive in the second half and especially the third act. Once the time travel aspect was introduced, I was ready to be done with the movie.

I know Indiana Jones is all about seeking out the abnormal and paranormal with his ancient artifacts, but c'mon! Time travel!? Just judging from the title of this film alone, I begged and pleaded to myself that it wouldn't be time travel like I feared, and that's exactly what I got.

That's on the same level of ridiculous as the aliens from the previous film! And while there's nothing quite as absurd as a fridge getting nuked this time around, rest assured, there's plenty of other absurd "That definitely should've killed him" moments sprinkled throughout.

Really, the only positives I can give this film is the charismatic performances of Waller-Bridge, though her character simply felt like a Karen Allen/Marion clone, and she even had her own little Short round ripoff following her around for much of the film too.

Also worth noting is the return of Jonathan Rhys Davies as Sallah was also welcome. Ford on the other hand looks miserable throughout the whole thing and like he doesn't even wanna be there, and at his age, who can blame him? His paycheck must've been large enough for them to talk back into one more.

Overall, it's absurd, it's off the wall, and it features time travel, something that doesn't belong in an Indiana Jones movie at all. I had low expectations going into this one, and all my fears and doubts about being able to give Dr.

Jones a satisfying close were all but confirmed. Hard to say whether I dislike this one more than the fourth or vice versa, because they're both on par with each other in terms of bad. In my eyes, this franchise ended over 30 years ago with 'The Last Crusade', and I'm perfectly content to think of it as such from this point forward.