 I'm probably a little underdressed to be talking about Indie 5 right now. I don't have a hat, I don't have a whip, which seems to be a requirement for a movie critic when talking about a big movie like this. Although one could argue, I look more the part. As the movie I watched a couple nights ago is in no way shape or form in Indiana Jones film. Let's talk about Indiana Jones and the Dial of Disappointment. I mean, Destiny. No, I was right the first time. I know I came in hot. I went against the playbook on YouTube where you're supposed to lead the people into the review without giving away the game right away. I did not care for Indiana Jones 5 and I do not care for the playbook on YouTube, which is why I don't have more subscribers. And I'm really getting sick and tired of people's feelings on movies. I don't care if you love this. That's great. I envy you. I wish I did love this because here's the cold heart truth. I went into Indiana Jones 5 and the Dial of Destiny assuming I would like it a lot. Because we got James Mangold behind the camera, he did Logan, which is one of my favorite comic book movies, Full Stop. He did Ford v Ferrari. He did though Wolverine. Okay, we shouldn't probably count that one. But still, the visuals are tight. He's got some good direction with the actors. I just thought this was an easy win. This is gonna be a spoiler-free review. I do a lot of movie reviews and rants and things of that nature. So if you would like to, please grab your whip and snap that subscribe button. And then when you're done with that, take off that hat, tip it to me and then throw it at that like button. I don't know why I'm being so vivid with this stuff. Just click it or push it. Whatever you're watching on a phone, taking a shit. I'll have a spoiler-filled version in a couple of days after some people have some time to get on and actually watch this thing if they want. Or they might just decide, ah, go ahead and spoil it for me. How long is this film? It's two hours and 34 minutes. Why? Why? I've made a couple of videos in the past complaining about run times of modern films. It's getting absurd. The Indiana Jones movies are around the two hour mark, a little less, sometimes a tiny bit more, but this is egregious. And it really has no reason to be so long. Especially when there's no deep, complex, or profound plot going on here, it's essentially a fetch quest. Indiana Bones has long hung up the hat his explorer days are over until Helena, who he lovingly refers to as mudflap or muskrat, or I honestly forgot the name he uses. It's kind of like mutt in Indiana Jones 4. He has a cute little name for her because she is the daughter of one of his good buddies. Mongoose comes into Indy's life with the proposition, mark, fuck you. She wants to uncover a large mystery, one that her dad died trying to accomplish. And I will say one of the positives in this movie is Indiana Jones doesn't really put up much of a fuss about it. He's kind of like, okay, yeah, let's do it. Which I really enjoyed. That feels like Indiana Jones in spirit, right? Harrison Ford, he's not gonna waste time. He's like, yeah, let's go find this thing. Which leads me to talk about our titular character, Mr. Ford himself, Indiana Jones. He's fine in this. He's good. You may have noticed in the trailers there's some de-aging going on with some flashback sequences. Those are something else. They're not that short either. There's a good chunk of time dedicated to flashback Indiana Jones. And I have to tell you, it looks weird. It looks off. Remember Grand Moth Tarkin in Rogue One? How kind of Pixar or fake he looked? This is a little better than that, but it's not one-to-one. It's like 95% there, which makes it even more bizarre because you're looking at it like, something's really still off about it. The wrinkles don't quite work right. Some of the smile cracks and features you get on a real human are not matched perfectly. And then of course, Harrison Ford is voicing him, but it sounds like it's 80-year-old Harrison Ford voicing his younger self. That comes off weird. That doesn't work. It gave me shades of the Irishman too, but that I think worked a little better because you had a lot of time to adjust to the fact that this character didn't quite look right. With Indy, he's interacting with real people, so it's like one Pixar character. It's a reverse Who Framed Roger Rabbit scenario here. You got one fake-looking thing mixed in with all real-world stuff. And speaking of effects, let's talk about them briefly in this movie because that's why we go to these, right? For the spelunking, the action adventure, the punches with the over-the-top sound effects. That's all in place. That's all in play. And I think where this is better than Crystal Skull is definitely in the visual department. Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, love it or hate it. I'm not really a fan of it, but it's watchable trash. That movie doesn't look good. It's got this ugly, blurry effect on everything. A lot of bloom lighting, some terrible green screen going on. This one is better by far. It's got some solid visuals. Again, Mangold knows what he's doing behind the camera, although Spielberg did too, but you threw Lucas in the mix on that one and that's, yeah, that spells trouble. That being said, there's only so much you can do with a very aged-up Indiana Jones. They're doing a lot of face swaps, body doubles, and that awful digital screen crap they used in the Mandalorian, I'm pretty sure is being used here to full effect in one or two of the chase sequences, which are a very big mixed bag. Some of it looks good, and I had a couple moments where I'm like, oh, that was sweet, but then it's instantly undercut by something that looks like ass. And it's like, oh, this is terrible. Superficial stuff aside, let's really get down to the core problem of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. And that's the fact that this is a young man's game. Indiana Jones was supposed to be a serialized, pulpy, adventure-style outing, kind of like the Star Wars movies used to be. It's supposed to be larger than life. Over the top, young, good-looking action star, getting out of horrible situations, doing ridiculously cool things. And when it's all said and done, you don't really think about what the hero's doing after the fact. You don't picture India at home with a scotch, reliving all the people that died in his life. Going to bed, having nightmare visions. That's something you get out of like a deliverance. Not in Indiana Jones. It's the same garbage we deal with so many of these modern retellings of old heroes. Star Wars with Luke being a bitter old man, dying alone on a mountain top after a bad Skype call. Or Ghostbusters Afterlife, where Egon was apparently a deadbeat dad and grandpa who was secluded, not talking to the other Ghostbusters, but then comes back as a ghost for some reason. The whole thing's cockamamie nonsense. Ghostbusters was great because it was a bunch of schlubs. They weren't superheroes by any means. Just trying to make it honest or maybe dishonest living for some of them. And what we end up getting is this character dissection and breakdown with the newer films. I was worried that's what we were gonna get with Indiana Jones and to an extent, it's definitely what we get with Indiana Jones. Some people are cool with that stuff, such as they aforementioned Ghostbusters Afterlife. They come away with that feeling, that nostalgia pull. Getting those tears because one of their old heroes is back on the big screen for one last outing, one last hurrah. But to me, at that point, you've lost the plot. That's not what Indy used to be. I like the guy that's running away from boulders after stealing a treasure or the dude in the caves witnessing a witch doctor rip the still beating heart out of a man. I don't wanna see old ass Indiana Jones shrubbing around in his apartment, yelling at the neighbors to keep it down. What is this? I don't want reality with this franchise. We go to these films to escape that crap. If I wanna see something like that, I watch a Clint Eastwood film. Personal opinions aside, what we have here is a very long movie, two hours and 34 minutes. It feels even longer. The editing is messy. There are moments in all of them, of course, where you can pick up things that don't quite flow correctly, but here it was very egregious. Quick example that's in the trailers. There's a spot where Indy's whipping around on the table and all these guys pull out guns and start shooting at him. He's like, whoa, whoa, and then he drops to the ground. Well, the room full of bad guys is only after him and his partner who we'll talk about in a second. And so when he ducks under the table, all they have to do is like look under and shoot or just shoot through the table. But it jumps to a scene where everybody's perplexed and he just kinda walks out of the room. He doesn't do anything to get out of that scenario. There are a lot of moments like that where he just kind of skirts by bad situations by just kind of like casually walking around. The co-star in this is Phoebe Wallerbridge. I brought her up earlier. She's the daughter, milk toast, or whatever the hell her name is. And she kind of annoyed the shit out of me. I found her worse and more unbearable than Mutt in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. So that's saying a lot right there for many people. And I know what you're thinking and no, it's not because she's a strong female lead. For Indiana Jones, it's about time. She's just no Marion who bounces off Indy a lot better than this new person does. No, Mall Rat here, I just didn't find any chemistry between these two. And when it was there, it was very forced. So the kinship that they share as this movie's going, it falls flat. If you're a die-hard Indy fan, you might really like this movie. You might hate this film too. It's definitely one that's gonna be an acquired taste. I just didn't get anything out of it. I was just completely numb and I was definitely ready to leave by the time the credits rolled. And I have no desire to sit through this slog again. The main villain, Dr. Voller, played by Mads Mickelson, is like playing the same character he did in the last Fantastic Beasts movie as Grindelwald. There's really nothing to him that's interesting at all. And there's really nothing in this movie that's all that interesting either. You could say the final act has some crazy cool stuff. I was checked out at that point and when that stuff did happen, I was like, okay, we could have even gone further with this honestly. Then I maybe would have been a bit more excited. I'll talk about that stuff in the spoiler version. But that's my thoughts on Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Let me know if you saw it in your comments. Do you disagree? Do you think this is one of the best Indiana Jones films or a great cap-off to our hero again? A good send-off again, like the last one was supposed to be 20 or 30 years back? Again, get that whip. Smack that subscribe button. Punch that like button with an over-the-top indie sound and hopefully then I'll see you next time. Take care.