Review of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023) by Judahjsn — 03 Jul 2023

At this point, the whole anti-woke movement is so deranged they are seeing an agenda in anything Disney puts out. This movie is not hyper woke by any stretch, nor is it overtly political. It just has a spunky female character. Everybody chill out. What's overlooked in these discussions is that these movies have always been this way. It was a trope in the 80s for there to be a male lead who was treating a female character like a damsel in distress, only the female character turned out to be ballsy and not need saving at all. It's Princess Leia in A New Hope, grabbing the blaster, telling her "rescuers" that they're basically idiots and leading the charge to escape.

As far as what's ACTUALLY on screen in this movie, it was decent. It felt underwritten. The jokes don't land. Ford seems to be giving a committed performance and it's a pleasure to see him put his heart into something and remind us all of the actor he once was before he settled into grumpy cameos. The final sequence was truly beautiful. But much of the movie is noisy and overlong, intersperesed with real charm.

It was definitely mixed but I enjoyed it.