For over four decades, fans have loved the Indiana Jones movie series, with the exception of The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull of course. And this weekend, Indiana Jones is returning to the big screen with Harrison Ford once again picking up the whip and fedora. But can the series redeem itself after the last movie didn’t perform as expected? And with the leading man now 80 years old, where does that leave the action of the film?
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is really a story told in two parts, with flashback sequences of Ford finding the part of the dial back in the forties and later in 1969 after his goddaughter comes back into his life looking for more information about it. In the forties, we see Ford as his younger self again, digitally de-aged with care and in his younger years fighting Nazis on trains and trying to save art and history in their wake. While the technology used to de-age Ford is impressive, they already have a lot of source material to use as a base, they seemingly forgot one part of it – his voice. As Ford has aged, his voice has become a bit raspier and grittier, and while the screen version may be a 40-something-year-old Indiana Jones on the screen, his voice is very much how it is today. This probably won’t take fans out of the experience, but with an ample library of voice sampling that could have been easily corrected.
In the later version, we see Indiana Jones as he is, an aging professor who just wants to be left alone as he comes to terms with his life around him. This doesn’t stop the movie from putting him in battle scenes, car chases, and everything he thought he left behind decades ago. Now a fish out of water in these scenes, bringing a whip to a gunfight, Jones doesn’t want to see the world differently than he left it years ago.
Overall, Dial of Destiny does what it sets out to do. It brings back the iconic character and gives him one last adventure. Throughout the movie, it peppers in other characters that fans have loved for decades and gives them their moment to shine on the screen as well. The movie also gives plausible reasons for the removal of other characters and actors that didn’t help the series overall. The adventure, as they all do at their core, seems a bit silly and goes to an extreme. But is still a fun adventure and a part of the world fans will get to explore with their favorite archeologist.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny feels like a return to the friends we’ve known for decades and to a fan-favorite franchise. Fifteen years after the release of The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the franchise tries to make up for the mistakes that were made and the poor casting choices that many fans thought soured the storyline. Feeling much more like the original three movies, Dial of Destiny brings back the excitement, the adventure, and of course taking down Nazis along the way.
Like a warm embrace, with a few too many car chases, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny hit theaters everywhere this weekend.
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About Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Harrison Ford returns to the role of the legendary hero archaeologist for this fifth installment of the iconic franchise. Starring along with Ford are Phoebe Waller-Bridge (“Fleabag”), Antonio Banderas (“Pain and Glory”), John Rhys-Davies (“Raiders of the Lost Ark”), Shaunette Renee Wilson (“Black Panther”), Thomas Kretschmann (“Das Boot”), Toby Jones (“Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom”), Boyd Holbrook (“Logan”), Oliver Richters (“Black Widow”), Ethann Isidore (“Mortel”) and Mads Mikkelsen (“Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore”). Directed by James Mangold (“Ford v Ferrari,” “Logan”), the film is produced by Kathleen Kennedy, Frank Marshall and Simon Emanuel, with Steven Spielberg and George Lucas serving as executive producers. John Williams, who has scored each Indy adventure since the original “Raiders of the Lost Ark” in 1981, is once again composing the score.
(LUCASFILM)
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