Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Mrs Shuttleworth · 13-07-2023 1:52am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120833950#Comment_120833950

Perfect review of Dial of Destiny. 100% what you said.

Re Temple of Doom - it's spectacular. The opening "Anything Goes" number rearranged by John Williams sung in Cantonese and directed by Spielberg "Busby Berkley" style is worth admission/streaming price alone.

HazeDoll · 14-07-2023 1:18am

I finally saw it this evening. These are my disjointed thoughts.

Like a lot of people, Indiana Jones has been a huge thing for me since childhood. All tied into fond memories of my Dad, my carefree youth, a lost sense of adventure, a sense of wonder. I don't know if many people are in a similar position but I definitely bring a lot of emotional baggage to the film. It's not really fair to expect Ford, Spielberg, Lucas and Disney to take all that into account. I think a lot of the time when we get worked up about franchises we forget how subjective these things are.

My emotional investment will never be satisfied by a new installment because what I actually want is to watch Raiders, for the first time, forever, with my Dad.

Hated Crystal Skull, obviously. I was so excited about it and so willing to be swept along and it was a huge let down. I'm not certain about this but I think it was the last film I saw in the cinema with my Dad. I have always taken its failure to entertain us personally.

I didn't hate DoD. I missed the little opening sequence that has nothing to do with the rest of the plot. (Rolling boulder in Raiders, the Shanghai bit in Temple of Doom, the River Phoenix bit in Crusade). I don't know if the Tobey Jones part was supposed to be an 'opening sequence' but it went on too long and was far too plot-related to work.

I liked the Helena character. I'd watch a spin-off featuring her, if that's what's coming next. She's likeable and her baddassery is believable enough to be engaging.

I couldn't figure out what that Teddy character was for. Maybe there was something weird going on with the sound in the cinema but it sounded like all his dialogue was badly dubbed. At no point did he contribute anything beyond plot mechanics. I wonder if he had a much more central role but a bunch of pivotal scenes were cut. All he did was remind me that Short Round wasn't in this film. I honestly think I couldn't have picked the actor out of a lineup if they had been in the cinema lobby the minute the film ended.

It was nice to see Sallah, shame he played such a minor role.

It was good to see Marion too but a little disappointing to see her reduced to the role of a sideline character. She was always so spirited and stroppy, I hated to see her so diminished.

I enjoyed watching out for little details that harked back to the other films. I bet I missed a bunch of them but they were fun. Of course, the danger with referencing the classics is that the audience is reminded of how great the other films were and how forgettable this is in comparison.

The big criticism that I have is quite hard to articulate. I think it's probably to do with pacing or editing. In the first three films the action slides from location to location in a way that feels smooth and weirdly believable. This is less true of Temple of Doom but it still works. I don't know how to explain this but it's like the rhythm of the film is very subtly dictated by the music. Crystal Skull and DoD don't seem to manage this. If it was a line of poetry you would add a stressed syllable here, two quick unstressed syllables there, to make the whole poem scan.

There was far too much 'Phew, we got away from them - Oh no, they found us!'

I didn't have a huge problem with the bit at the end. I was on board with the biblical face-melters in Raiders, the magicky stones in Temple of Doom, the ancient knight in Crusade. I can get on board with a bit of time travel. I didn't quite catch it, but was there a Terminator II type of loop, where the technology wouldn't have been invented if it hadn't been brought back in time?

*Editing to add: I somehow forgot to mention that Ford carries the whole thing with great style. He had some good lines but really he just inhabits the leather jacket, hat and whip in a way that makes the character feel real. I can't imagine Batman being Batman once the cameras aren't pointed at him, and the same goes for Bond, Skywalker and anybody else I can think of. The thing that was always different about Indy was that I could believe that he had lots of other adventures when nobody was watching. While I was doing my homework he was out there going about his day, wearing his hat and saving the world.

Here's how things currently stand. I might feel differently in the morning.

Raiders
Crusade
Temple of Doom
Dial of Destiny
An episode of Duck Tales that I vaguely remember.
Crystal Skull.

Homelander · 14-07-2023 8:11am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120833950#Comment_120833950

Bit disingenuous to use Black Adam as a representative of Marvel/DC movies. It's absolute crap, recognised as same generally, and was a box office flop as well.

Something recent like Guardians of the Galaxy 3 is not only incomparably better than Dial of Destiny and far better critically and commercially received, but a genuinely good movie.

In fact the director of Dial of Destiny also directed Logan, another excellent comic-book movie that's several rungs above most of them.

Of course there are "bad" or even just average superhero movies, any amount of them. But there's also remarkably good ones. To dismiss them all as rubbish or vapid, and most especially to use Black Adam of all things as an example in a discussion, is rubbish in itself.

Decuc500 · 15-07-2023 11:23am

I'm well aware that James Mangold directed Logan. He's a proper filmmaker and Logan is a great film. It's totally different from most superhero movies ( or shows) that 'drop' on Disney every week. There's very little artistry involved in most of these things. And maybe I shouldn't be using Black Adam as an example if it's not considered good and flopped but I don't really care. For one James Mangold there are 10 Black Adams.

To me it's representative of how these films have taken over popular cinema. I'm not in the target audience for superhero films anymore so maybe my opinion is invalid but I've seen enough of them to basically detest them now.

So please don't tell me my opinion is rubbish if I value a thing such as quality popular cinema over mass produced rubbish.

B.A._Baracus · 16-07-2023 12:04am

Watched it tonight and I enjoyed it. Maybe that's because I heard so many people saying it was garbage my expectations were low.

Go in low and be entertained.

beastfromtheEast · 16-07-2023 10:59pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120828215#Comment_120828215

Seen it the other week and it was ok.

Not nearly as bad as most are making out but at the same time it's not a patch on Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The CGI or Green Screen effects on the Train don't look very good the real Train at the start of The Last Crusade blows it out of the water.

Agent Coulson · 22-07-2023 12:00am

Reading today that this will be Disneys biggest live action flop since John Carter.

~Rebel~ · 05-08-2023 11:41pm

Finally got around to catching this in cinema. Totally fine bit of fun. Much much better than Crystal Skull, but a pale shadow of the original trilogy. But a grand bit of reasonably empty light entertainment. Was glad to see all the nonsensical hand-wringing about the dynamic between Indy and Helena was totally wrong and unfounded. I also kinda think a lot of people totally misinterpreted the role of Helena in this - she's not there as his snarky sidekick, she's his antagonist almost as much as Mikkelsen is. She's trying to assert her own position, with her own financially driven goals in direct conflict to Indy, but Indy is the one who is always always right, including, finally, about her own deeper motivations for her chosen life path. Her trying to undermine him is her own effort to justify herself - but Indy always has the upper hand, and always knows better.

Having had a quick scan through the comments... some people need to refocus their thinking I think. It's far less useful to focus on a negative, the thing you don't want, rather than what you do want. Seems a few people can see nothing but 'wokeness' wherever they look, to the extent of losing the bigger picture. The entertainment industry doesn't have a 'wokeness' problem. One need only glance at TV to see wokeness is not a prerequisite - TV is full of all kinds of everything. Film's problem is that all the best talent is in TV now, writing brilliant nuanced intelligent exciting content. I saw one of the comments complaining about the lack of iconic movie characters over the past few years - again attributing wokeness - well, there's no end of iconic TV characters in that time.

At the same time as all the money entered TV, Film was shifting their model to bet big on known-IP, limiting the opportunities for writers, pushing them into this burgeoning TV market. Meanwhile, the obvious issue with those big IP projects is that if they're your long term, they need to be protected. So you get increasingly inoffensive content (in every way, not just political correctness) that doesn't push boundaries, because each of these installments is just one piece of a massive financial pie, so it simply isn't worth the risk of potentially spoiling the property by deviating from the safe (like the backlash to Last Jedi taking a few risks). It's the major downside of working with ideas/concepts/worlds that have such a strong attachment already built to them.

The hope is that the diminishing returns of these massive IPs will eventually require taking more risks on original content, bringing some of these writers who have been excelling in the TV space back into the film world, and broadening the range of the big studios output - going from a small handful of massive budget projects to a broader spread of medium budget films.

(also, i fcking hate the word 'woke', so gonna avoid it for another while!)

pixelburp · 14-08-2023 7:30pm

A little longer than I had speculated given the box pummelling this got, but Indy 5 is arriving on digital platforms August 29; no mention of Disney+ but I presume that'll happen later.

Tony EH · 29-08-2023 11:57pm

Stopped watching this at the 1:20 mark. It's incredibly dull.

Might pick it up again tomorrow.

Really though...phew.

pixelburp · 30-08-2023 9:13am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121044973#Comment_121044973

Because it's you, I can't resist asking: how's the comedy? 🤭😂

I have it queued up here myself but it speaks to the unremarkable thud the film made that watching it feels more obligation than excitement. Rewatched Dune the other day and despite the familiarity, was excited to do so.

Tony EH · 30-08-2023 12:08pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121045505#Comment_121045505

There's not that much in it so far. Certainly no gibberish like shooting the tail off your own plane anyway. But seriously, it's just incredibly unexciting and uninteresting.

Best thing about it was the de-ageing on Ford at the beginning. From a purely technical POV it was quite impressive. But the uncanny valley is still inescapable. However everything looks so drenched in CGI that it's impossible to buy into any action sequence or scenario.

As the meme says. I went in with low expectations and even they weren't met. I'll finish it out tonight in the hopes that it'll pick up. But I've a feeling that this Indy flick is going to be a one and done for me.

johnny_ultimate · 30-08-2023 12:18pm

I actually think the final part is the most enjoyable, simply because it has a bit of pep in its step rather than the dulling lethargy of the rest of the film. But it's also by far the silliest part of the film (and arguably the series), so also the most divisive part of it 😅 It goes for broke though, which is something that absolutely cannot be said for the preceding 100 or so minutes.

pixelburp · 30-08-2023 12:44pm

I'll be honest: that I wanna watch this at all is purely for this last act that's supposedly divisive and a bit madcap. Sounds like there's at least something to talk about.

johnny_ultimate · 30-08-2023 1:01pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121046424#Comment_121046424

I do admit I will be very, very surprised if @Tony EH is on the positive side of the divide 😆

Tony EH · 30-08-2023 1:07pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121046496#Comment_121046496

Oh dear...

~Rebel~ · 30-08-2023 2:09pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121046424#Comment_121046424

tbh I thought it was grand. I'm not sure I saw much actually divisive stuff in there really, beyond the stuff that people invented for themselves long before it ever came out. It's fine... it drags at times, is a bit of fun at times, and probably won't last too long in the memory, but not too much to be upset about either. A 6/10 sort of deal that passes a Sunday afternoon easily enough.

B.A._Baracus · 30-08-2023 2:50pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121044973#Comment_121044973

Lol.. :p

Tony EH · 30-08-2023 4:46pm

Arrrrgh, Jim m'lad, we set sail!

pixelburp · 30-08-2023 7:28pm

Have it a go anyway, given it had appeared on digital; I had a day off so why not.

Well then. Ultimately this was deeply baggy while the script was an absolute fúcking jumbled mess; but crucially it was a superfluous coda to a story we had already been given the finale to, a script contriving a story reset so "the movie can happen". Like it or loathe it, Crystal Skull was the ending and so this film kept feeling like a Greatest Hits of tropes and iconography for no other reason than shallow nostalgia dopamine hits. They said the thing, they did the thing.

James Mangold did his level best to emulate Spielberg and TBH most of the time he did a commendable job. When it wasn't lathered in shíte CGI - somehow worse than Crystal Skull in places - the film was enjoyable & verging on fun; highlights being the Tangier chase and the few "tomb" scenes with indy simply exploring (and trashing ancient ruins, lol). But in a year where Mission Impossible crashed a real train for our entertainment, this film's own train was a fairground ride while broadly, too much of the action was plastic and unconvincing - backgrounds in vehicles particularly dreadful.

And bloodless, again worse than Crystal Skull: it was quite cynical how the one trope of the Indy franchise that was dropped to placate the Four Quadrant Gods; no gore, no blood, CGI dummies swept off screen lest we see too much. It wasn't a key pillar but the Spielberg films had an edge. We all remember the end of Raiders precisely because of the horror of it.

The de-ageing was impressive, mostly. Clearly they didn't use Harrison Ford himself and a younger stand-in instead, so there were no regrettable moments of a doddery man playing 40 (see The Irishman); but they didn't adjust the voice, so old man Ford growling through slightly deepfake lips kept breaking the spell. Shooting everything at night was a smart move, drenching the face with shadows a smart way to reduce the obvious digital texture.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121046301#Comment_121046301

Jesus you're not kidding. Thematically it kinda worked, if you squint, but again it felt like the long road back to a point Crystal Skull arrived at years ago. I didn't feel what I think the script and movie wanted me to feel.

Tony EH · 30-08-2023 10:05pm

So me and herself finished this out after work...and, well...it certainly improves after the 1 hour 20 mark, that's for sure, and probably the best section of the whole movie is the "quiet" middle, where Jones, herself and that monobrow kid escape Mads on the boat and head off to Syracuse to Dionysus' tomb.

The end though, fuck me. I'll agree with Johnny in that it goes balls to the wall and says "feck it, this is what we're doing". But by that stage of the movie I was like, "sure go on". And while it was absolutely absurd, it kinda looked great.

It is a bit of an odd fish this film, I think most people would agree, and it's definitely never going to do any damage to 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' in terms of vying for top spot in the series. It has its moments, for sure, but it's terribly over long and extremely muddled.

The whole film, though, is just unpleasant to look at. It's so soft looking and without definition, probably to offset the softness of the overtly CGI sections. It never feels like it was shot on film. A comparison between the 1981 movies and Dial of Destiny would be interesting.

I'll say this, however, the ending in New York was very nicely done indeed.

Is it worth a watch? Over all I would say yes. But then every film in the series is worth a watch. Will it reach anywhere near to being a fondly remembered and often viewed classic like 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' or 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom' or even, dare I say it, 'Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade'?

Not a chance.

pixelburp · 31-08-2023 8:35am

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121049151#Comment_121049151

I'll say this, however, the ending in New York was very nicely done indeed.

Definitely. I'd maintain that it returned to a place Crystal Skull had arrived at, the reconciliation not as impactful as the script wanted me to feel - but it was nice all the same. A surprisingly quiet, domestic, heartfelt ending after the utter lunacy of that final act. Or indeed the complete mess that was all acts prior (seriously, the thing was just all over the place)

Harrison Ford's acting when he makes the

Continental Drift

realisation was actually rather great. His acting can sometimes be a bit inscrutable, being hard to know if the gruffness is Ford's impatience or the character written that way. So here he was often a bit autopilot, gruff without trying too hard; but his manic "you silly bastàrd, you're so fúcked" energy during that finale's scene was fun.

Sad Professor · 03-09-2023 10:00am

I thought this was fine, pretty good even, definitely something I'll revisit without too much hesitation which I can't say for Crystal Skull. However Mangold is no Spielberg and doesn't have anything to add to this franchise unfortunately. It's a shame that we didn't get more of these movies when Ford was younger and Spielberg still knew how to make them.