Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is debuting to worse reviews than Indiana Jones and the Kindom of the Crystal This Movie Supersucks.
How is it physically and scientifically possible to make a movie worse than Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal This Movie Supersucks?
Ooh, I know. Ooh, ooh, I know!
You hire Kathleen Kennedy to produce it.
Things looked pretty good for Indy 5 when director James Mangold was brought on to bid Indiana Jones a fond farewell. Mangold’s farewell to Wolverine with Logan (2017) is a thing of beauty, my favorite X-Men movie.
And I wasn’t too worried that Harrison Ford is 80 years old. He’s still fit and virile, still every inch a leading man. That can work.
No, it was when the child abusers at Disney chose to release this clip this week that I began to worry…
It’s a dreadful clip. It’s so dreadful I sat on it for a while, worried it might be a deep fake. But not only is it real, the people behind the film believed this dreadful clip was a highlight.
The CGI sucks. The lame banter removes all the tension from the chase. Phoebe-Not-Cates proves to be anything but warm and appealing. Instead, she’s a smug, scolding girlboss. Ugh.
So, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Sucks More Than Supersucky Crystal Skull debuted at the Cannes Film Festival this week, which felt like a burst of confidence from the people at Disney (who want to have sex with your children). Why else would they hold their $300 million movie up to the world six weeks before it arrives in theatres June 30?
Well, like everything else Kathleen Kennedy and Disney do, that was stupid.
Get a load of this…
Back in 2008, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal This Movie Supersucks somehow earned a 77 percent fresh at Rotten Tomatoes. The audience score is only 53 percent.
Not to get too far off track, but I actually remember this…
I remember sitting through Crystal Sucks, going home, writing and publishing a devastating review (which is no longer online), and being gobsmacked by the good and great reviews from everywhere else. After that, I started to second-guess myself. Maybe I was in a bad mood? Maybe my Chuckles were spiked? But history, as it almost always does, has proved me a movie prophet.
With that 77 percent fresh for Crystal Sucks in mind, how bad does Dial of Destiny have to be to currently be sitting at 43 percent rotten? That’s based only on 14 reviews, so it can and will change, but even the “good” reviews give you pause. Here is an excerpt from a “good” review:
His hat is back. His whip is back. His ophidiophobia – that’s fear of snakes – is back. And, briefly, as the film begins, so is Indiana Jones’s youth. Nevertheless, for all the unremitting action, this is a finale that, like its protagonist, is definitely showing its age.
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But has director James Mangold also miraculously returned the franchise to the youthful splendour of Raiders of the Lost Ark? No, but there are enough elements in this final instalment that certainly catapult it above its ill-judged predecessor Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Here’s a taste of the negative reviews—and yes, the girlboss Phoebe-Not-Cates emasculates Indy: [emphasis added throughout]
BBC:
Like another of Ford’s so-called “legacy sequels”, Star Wars: The Force Awakens, this one brings back old characters (John Rhys-Davies’s Sallah has a pointless cameo), introduces new ones who are strangely similar to the old characters (Ethann Isidore plays a substandard copy of Short Round from Temple of Doom), and has the air of a film passing the torch (or whip) to the next generation. But it does all this in an even gloomier fashion than The Force Awakens did. I’m not sure how many fans want to see Indiana Jones as a broken, helpless old man who cowers in the corner while his patronising goddaughter takes the lead, but that’s what we’re given, and it’s as bleak as it sounds.
Even the Disney sycophants at the Hollywood Reporter are unhappy:
That nonstop pacing might sound ideal, but it’s mostly an exhausting slog. When Dial of Destiny gives an explicit throwback nod to earlier episodes — Indy remembering drinking the Blood of Kali, enduring voodoo torture or getting shot nine times; or he and his new companions squeezing through a narrow stone corridor and discovering midway that it’s alive with creepy-crawlies — it’s a reminder of how much fun those early movies were. And still are, despite some eyebrow-raising racist caricatures that belong to a simpler, less culturally sensitive time.
“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” is a dutifully eager but ultimately rather joyless piece of nostalgic hokum. It’s the fifth installment of the “Indiana Jones” franchise, and though it has its quota of “relentless” action, it rarely tries to match (let alone top) the ingeniously staged kinetic bravura of “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”
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Have you ever seen an action sequence set atop a speeding train? We’ve all seen 10,000 of them, and this one, while efficiently executed, is brought off with just enough CGI that you can see the digital seams.
As if the filmmakers are aware of that inherent problem, they add more magic than has perhaps ever existed in the franchise. (Well, okay, there were aliens in Crystal Skull.) By the climax of the film—which looks washed out and sallow—we have traveled perilously far from booby trapped caves and matinee serial moxie. Indy just doesn’t seem right in the movie’s environs, an old guy who’s been dragged somewhere he doesn’t belong.
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At least Ford seems in good form, though I wish for once a revisited character in a cash-grab, years-later sequel wasn’t saddled with grief. Just let Indy have fun! Or, better yet, let him rest in the glow of memory, forever an icon.
How many franchises does franchise-killer Kathleen Kennedy get to woke-rape before she’s fired? So far, it’s three: Star Wars, Willow, and Indiana Jones.
By the way, that super-woke Willow TV series is such a flop on Disney+, so rejected by viewers, it’s already scheduled to be removed from the streaming service to save money.
The first three Indiana Jones movies are fantastic. Why waste your time with garbage when you can revisit those?
Why spend all that time and money to go to a movie theater and sit through garbage when you can buy a Blu-ray of some classic movie you’ve never seen for half that cost? Why not use your time and money to take a chance that way? It’s a much safer bet, and the Blu-ray is yours to keep.
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.