Just saw it! This movie was somehow both amazing and completely average. I was torn between the fact that I knew, as I watched it, that the stuff I was most enjoying was already being lambasted by critics, and based on some of the after-view commentary I overheard, including from some chubby 20-something talking about how he has "lived long enough to see his childhood hero fail," that I suspect this movie won't play well to audiences. Its third act was amazing.....just not in a world today populated by Marvel multiverses and DC Flashpoints. Gah.
Anyway, I'll just say that while this movie was hardly necessary, it was a fine adventure and in most spots managed to feel much more like a true Indiana Jones movie than the fourth film. It's clever use of real archaeological details mixed with clever fictions (in the Indiana Jones universe the Antikythera Mechanism is a much more dramatically intact and useful object...the eponymous Dial of Destiny in the title, if you will) made for a kind of more familiar mixture of classic Indiana Jones, sullied only occasionally by moments where the set pieces felt too CGI enhanced. That said....a lot of this movie felt like it was more traditionally filmed with live action sequences, making the moments where it seemed like CGI was in use stand out all the more.
I enjoyed it, overall. I would give it a solid A, and having seen all the other blockbusters this year so far, this is the only one I really felt like commenting on in the blog. Unfortunately I think that general audiences today are both too cynical to enjoy this movie, too divided over the old Lucas Film properties and what should be done with them, and too burned out on big set-piece action films that have to compete with Marvel movies to really care about this one. I could be wrong, but I doubt it. This will probably be the last "smart" action movie we see for a long time if it bombs. A real shame. And if you want to argue that point with me, then my contention above is proven correct. I think this was a good movie....not a great movie, and its perceived failures stem only from being #5 in a series that was much better when it was new and young, but I think anyone with an earnest appreciation for Indiana Jones, and who maybe was old enough to see Raiders of the Lost Ark when it originally released in the theaters, that you might just find this one a fun watch, and a bit sentimental, too.
Minor Spoilers! Here are the three things I disliked and five things I very much liked:
Good: the clever use of mixing archaeological fact and fiction to define the Antikythera Mechanism (just called the "Antikythera" in the movie) with the historical foundation lodged in Archimedes and the Siege of Syracuse to craft an interesting McGuffin for Indiana Jones to pursue.
Bad: Harrison Ford's CGI de-aging didn't work for me as much as I thought it would, and his voice sounded too old for the age they were depicting.
Good: The movie handled a transition from the last film surprisingly well, and made it character relevant in a way that I thought worked. They refrained from too many callbacks which was good (and the ones we had were generally "relevant" as opposed to gratuitous, though Sallah maybe was just there because they could).
Bad: A bug scene callback that proves the Indiana Jones universe just has a lot of really big bugs out there.
Good: The final act was amazing, I was very excited that they actually did what they did (won't say what, but it was brilliant).
Bad: Indiana Jones should have stayed. You'll see what I mean if you watch it! That would have been a true send-off. The maudlin actual ending was fine, too....but....grrrr. I was with him on that one.
Good: It's over, I feel like maybe they can please let Jones (and Ford) retire forever here, it was a fine final tale.
Random Thought: why are there no Indiana Jones book or comic tie-ins? His early adventures could be exploited that way. I know my kid would read them (and I would too if they aren't aimed at the YA audience). Maybe those do exist and I just don't know about it. Or maybe modern audiences, no longer being readers of such staid forms of entertainment, don't make it worthwhile to produce such stuff? Hmmm. (EDIT: An Amazon search reveals a lot of old novels in a series, but we're talking books going back to the "written by Steve Perry" era of tie-ins. Also, lots of Scholastic adventures from 12-15 years ago, it looks like. So...yeah.....YMMV on these I guess. I'll stick to other stuff).
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