Movie Details
| Title: | Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny | |
| Director: | James Mangold | |
| Year: | 2023 | |
| Genre: | Adventure | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 12.29.23 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (6)
- 3:10 to Yuma
- Ford v Ferrari
- Knight and Day
- Logan
- Walk the Line
- The Wolverine
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 12.29.23 | Internet | Crossing some of the bigger titles from this year off the list as I have a few days off here, I was actually pleasantly surprised with this one. I've only seen Crystal Skull once and my overriding memory is the whole "knowledge was their treasure" line making me groan (and the giant ants, and the fridge, and Shia)... so yeah not really positive memories of that one. This, though. This, to me, felt pretty good! I mean there are some glaring artifacts of 2023 filmmaking here where everything looks too pristine to be real and Ford's face is pasted on what feels like half a dozen stunt actors' bodies, but mostly I thought it acquitted itself pretty well. I felt adventure, I felt lore and puzzles and racing against nazis feels canon. The film does basically go off the rails at the end, but conceptually speaking it doesn't feel too far off from ghosts melting faces or everlasting life or aliens. I guess you gotta go somewhere strange for it to be an Indy movie. Can't be like, Indiana Jones and the Grocery Store Coupon. I'll touch more on the ending below in a spoilers section. So yeah... I'm not sure if i'm with the people on this or not, but I thought it was pretty good! Still probably below Temple of Doom (which has some serious issues as well) but a lot better than Crystal Skull? SPOILERS AHEAD More about the ending. When they went through the fissure I thought they were going to be in 2023 and was real bummed out about that. Son in that regard I liked that they went back instead... closing the loop of the frieze and the watch and stuff like that. But I did think it was weird that there was like a cadre of 1969 nazis ready to cosplay in their new uniforms and totally on board to time travel back, kill hitler, and... win? the war? without hitler? I generally like when the bad guys' plans implode on their own (which is also a very Indy thing, or at least a Raiders thing) but this one seems particularly stupid. I suppose including a "nazis are bad" message in 2023 is regrettably topical so maybe that's why they did it, but I feel like 1969 had a notable lack of nazis, right? Like that's maybe their nadir. Maybe I'm wrong... they definitely popped back up by the early 80s... still seemed odd that they were marching in formation and everything. I guess that's not the biggest plot hole to point out in a movie where a plane crashes in ancient greece but it's the one that bugged me the most. |
