Because both the Star Wars and Indiana Jones franchises grew out of George Lucas and Steve Spielberg's love of old cinema but were themselves original concepts, I've frequently wondered in recent years whether there is any point in continuing those franchises without the men who originated them. Obviously LucasFilm is a business who want to keep making money from what are two valuable piece of intellectual property, but in this instance, what does James Mangold get to achieve by creating an Indiana Jones film? At best, people might call his work "worthy." But if you're a filmmaker who really likes the Indiana Jones films, why not do what Lucas and Spielberg originally did - make your own adventure film, set your own rules, invent your own hero. Lucas and Spielberg could have probably afforded the rights to Plunder of the Sun and made a really great adaptation; instead they went one better and gave us Raiders of the Lost Ark, adding something new to popular culture.
Oh, well. Spoilers after the dial.
Seeing a trailer ahead of the film for this week's release Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1 reminds me that there are still great action-adventure films out there with plenty of terrific death-defying practical stunts. Boy, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny looks good enough, but really lacks the set pieces visible in that Mission: Impossible trailer - or set pieces from the earlier Indiana Jones films. I think part of why that trailer pops is because most of the stunts we glimpse are staged in broad daylight, where it's more difficult to cheat and hide - and for those reasons easier to impress the audience. So many of the stunts of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny are set in dark or enclosed spaces where the viewer can't appreciate any sense of choreography.
I wasn't terribly impressed by the previous film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, owing mainly to the bad CGI effects. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny does at least have very good CGI - certainly the effects used to de-age Harrison Ford for the opening sequence are impeccable. Pity they couldn't de-age his voice though, it spoils the illusion.
Set (mostly) in 1969, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny finds former Nazis seeking a relic which they hope will function as a time machine, enabling them to alter the past and win World War II. Dr. Jones is roped into this adventure because he possesses one half of the device. Eventually he loses his half to the Nazis and so tries to obtain the 2nd half to keep it out of their hands.
Complicating matters is the character Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), Indy's goddaughter. Although raised by an archaeologist and adept in such matters, she claims to be in it for the money. For about half the movie she repeatedly tricks, stonewalls or refuses help from our hero, Indiana. Indy cares about her, but it takes a very long time for her to demonstrate she genuinely cares about him. She reminds me of the problem I noted with the Angel character Connor (as well as the Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan character David Marcus). Indiana is the audience's established hero and so because he cares about Helena, we care about her. But own her own merits, Helena is not very likeable.
It's okay for a character to have unlikeable character traits and experience an arc during the film that leads them to another place by the climax (indeed, her arc is basically to be like Han Solo in the original Star Wars). I found Helena Shaw problematic because the filmmakers seemed to think she was much more entertaining than I did. She puts down our hero, Indiana Jones; she makes cute James Bond-esque quips; she gets thirsty whenever she sees a good-looking man. I never found those character quirks endearing. I would have been happier if the filmmakers had treated her as a wild card for most of the film so that when she finally proved herself a staunch ally to Indiana Jones in the end I would have felt she earned her place. Giving her 'humourous' quirks felt like the film was rushing to assume I liked her character and already accepted her as Indy's sidekick, which I really did not. (Re: The Scrappy)
The film is okay; it has an agreeable light-hearted tone. The cameos by John Rhys-Davies and Karen Allen were most welcome. The time travel was kind of ridiculous but mostly in a good over-the-top way. My girlfriend opined that she wanted to see it again and that's the highest praise you can give an action film.
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