 Have you seen Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and you're not sure how to put into words the sheer disappointment you have, the massive letdown that this film has turned out to be? Well that's why you're watching this video so that I can do the job for you. I'm Adam and we're going to be talking Indiana Jones and the Dial of Disappointment. Let's begin. Now some of you came to this video and you're like, hang on, how dare you sir? I didn't hate Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. I actually love the film. Well you're in luck because I'm not going to just be crapping all over it. I don't think it's a terrible movie. I just think it's a pretty terrible Indiana Jones movie. As far as the movie goes, it's not great but it's not awful. Let me put it this way. I can see why people do like this film. Visually it's shot pretty well. I like some of the set pieces and let's start with the opening act which I think is easily the highlight of the movie and that's probably because we have a young Indiana Jones again or at least a pretend AI, weird digital recreation of a young Indiana Jones using some deep fake or face swap or whatever the hell they're doing these days. So the movie opens in Nazi times, somewhere in the 40s after the war is basically completed. They've lost. Hitler is a complete disaster and a failure as a leader and we have the Nazis stealing a bunch of paintings and prize possessions, putting them on a train and they're going to bust out a dodge. Well they weren't counting on Indiana Jones being there. That's right, we have a young de-aged spry 30 to 40 year old indie. No Indiana bones yet. He's going to show up after like 25 minutes of this flick. This whole sequence made me feel a little dirty. I knew that wasn't really him. Part of me wonders if I showed this to someone that didn't know what Harrison Ford looked like back in the day if they would be convinced by this. If this beautiful video game face would trick them, it's very possible it would completely fool them, but that's not who this movie's for. They're for people like me and older who grew up with the Indiana Jones and we know what the hell's going on here. And this ain't natural folks. This is weird. Witchcraft going on in Hollywood. Okay odd Pixar level animated Harrison Ford stuff aside. This is a pretty fun opening and it really does have that indie style to it. I wouldn't say the feel is quite there from the Spielbergian era. Definitely has that James Mangold touch to it. Mangold who usually does a lot more dire films. Movies that are a lot more somber and sad like Logan or the Wolverine or Ford v Ferrari or Walk the Line or Heavy. Like his movies are all pretty depressing. Even the superhero ones are depressing. So putting him on a project where you have to have a fun pulpy adventure doesn't quite match up. And that's definitely being portrayed on the screen. It's missing those wonderfully magical whimsical moments you get from all the other indie flicks. So he and his buddy Basil Shaw, played by Toby Jones, infiltrate this Nazi regime. They go on the train and they're looking for a prized artifact, but they end up stumbling on something completely different and far more precious. Our comedies, Dial of Destiny, which I believe is referred to as the anti-Kethra. That might not be the pronunciation. It's got antique kind of in the name though. They're not the only ones with their eye on this prize though. Dr. Voller, brilliant Nazi mathematician, has been looking for this thing. And the problem is it comes in pairs. There's two pieces that fit one, which make this dial work. Now what the dial does only the doctor knows for sure. This lengthy opener exists for three reasons. One, so we can see young Indiana Jones again, which is what everybody really wants. And they shouldn't have made Indiana Jones be an old, retired, curmudgeon-y guy. He was already curmudgeon-y before, but it was in a fun way. Now it's in a get off my lawn, you damn kids. And that, that's not fun. Dose. So we can introduce this artifact that's going to come back into Mr. Jones' life all these years later. And number thraw in the most important piece to show his relationship with Basil. We jump to present day in the film for indie, which is 1960 something, 1969 I think. Yeah, it would be, yes, it's 1969 because it's moon day when Indy wakes up. Man walked on the moon. We did it. NASA got there with the help of the Nazis. That's going to be a little bit in play in this picture. Oh, and I wasn't being cute earlier when I said Indy's an old curmudgeon-y dude who's yelling at the kids to keep it down. That's what he does in this scene. He wakes up, hears loud music. He goes to the hippies across the streets to shut up. He's got a baseball bat and everything. Like he's in Grand Torino. He then heads to his job that he's had for now 10 years. He's not a professor at the old college anymore. He's at some place new. I forgot the name of it, but we get to meet people that will inevitably die later in the flick. This movie does have a lot of, um, has a lot of like sad killing that I don't remember in the previous ones. Again, the old Indiana Jones movies were pulpy and lighter, which is kind of weird to say out loud when you think about the fact that Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom has slave kids working in a mine and witch doctors and all sorts of crazy shit. Yet this one felt the most off for me. It felt a little unnerving seeing innocent people just get shot straight up. And I think it's the way that Mangold shoots this stuff that gets a little more raw, a little bit more intense than a Spielberg film would. And they had guns in their hands when they did this too. They weren't replaced with walkie-talkies. That was another problem. They should have had walkie-talkies and shot them. I'm getting ahead of myself though. Before that happens, there's a little celebratory party thrown for his 10 years on the job. He gets this crappy gift that he hands over to a homeless man before crossing the street while we're a very festivist parade is happening. This stuff looks pretty cool. And this is where things are going to start going downhill. This is where Helena enters the picture, the daughter of Shaw. Jones is going to refer to her as Wombat going forward, which I absolutely hate, but that's what we have to deal with. She's the mutt of the film from Indie 4. I kept waiting for Fleabag to look at the camera and wink at us, but she never does. She just exists to be annoying. I don't know. Something about her character didn't really work for me. She's a smart ass. She's cocksure. She doesn't really care about Indie or the possessions. She just wants to sell it all for money. I think she reminds me of me too much. That's the problem I have with her. Some people were worried this was going to be a handoff situation where she was going to be the real star, kind of like the thought mutt was in the last film. That's not the case, although she does have dedicated scenes and they're all very uninteresting and I don't care about her character, so get me back to Indiana Jones. But he's 80 and can't really do a whole lot, so there's a lot of stunt doubles and like the whole thing is just so, so stupid. I'm sorry, there's just, there's no reason for this movie. Okay, she informs him that she's still on the hunt for dad's old treasure. She wants to get to the bottom of this whole Archimedes dial thing and she's been going over her dad's notes very extensively. She hasn't memorized all 17 pages or whatever she said, the good parts at least, and she explains how her brilliant father has discovered that the Archimedes dial can actually take you to a fissure in time itself so you can travel into the past or potentially the future. This is a cool concept because unlike Indiana Jones 4 with the whole alien thing, this to me fits within the scientific realm of the previous films with a little bit of supernatural mixed in for good measure, aliens just seemed out of place. And it's funny that it's never brought up to my knowledge in this film. There's a point later where he's chatting with her and he can't climb up the rocks and he's talking about how he's seen a lot of shit back in the day. He mentions a few things from past movies but never says aliens, which I think would be the first thing you mention or you would at least lead into that big reveal. No, aliens never comes up. That was like a Tuesday for Indiana Jones. He explains to her that he never destroyed the dial. She knew he wouldn't even though we get a flashback where he promised his buddy he would. Indy doesn't keep his promises, he's trash. We should know that already and that's okay, that's why we love him. Anyway, the Russians show up. Mads Mikkels is one of them. The doctor never died back in the 40s when Indiana Jones kicked him off the side of the train and his head smashed right into a wooden pole or something, a beam sticking out and he fell down. He's fine, not even a scratch to be fair. That same sequence also contained Mads pushing Indiana Jones up into the air so that his back is scraping along a tunnel that the train is speeding under. He's fine too. It didn't sustain any back injuries or scarring. It's impressive. I know he didn't have any scarring because we see Indy with his shirt off, 80-year-old Indy with his shirt off for the ladies. From this point on for the next like hour, it's pretty much just a madcap dash through different sections. Harrison Ford jumps on a horse at one point. It looks terrible and this is where the first big editing issue comes into play for me. So these Nazis chase Ford out into the parade and he's just kind of standing there wandering around. The Nazis are right behind him, yet they don't approach for some reason and then he goes up to a cop and he's like, I need your horse and he takes the horse and he rides off. I don't know what happened. There are several spots in this movie where Indiana Jones just wanders around and people stop chasing him for no reason at all. Helena steals the dial so she can travel with it and sell it at a black market architect convention thing. It's at this point where his old buddy Sala shows up to give him a ride, meet his family and then drop him off at the airport and he's even like, hey, Indy, can I come with? I don't have much to live for. My life is pretty mediocre and I really just want to have one last hurrah with you. One last ride to really show the world and Indy's like, no, I'm doing this alone, Sala. Fuck off. And Sala's like, okay, fair, give him hell, Indiana Jones. And then he almost gets hit by a car because he's 80 and doesn't know anything about the world anymore. He's like, oh, oh my God. Oh, sorry. Hearing aid is too low. Damn kids, damn cars. Back in my day, we went on horses. He's now on the trail of Helena or mousetrap or whatever her name is and eventually some dumb kid named Teddy joins the adventure. I don't actually know what his purpose is or why he's in this at all. He doesn't bring anything to the table outside of getting kidnapped. Oh, and at the end, flying a plane somehow. He's no short round. I can tell you that right now. So it's a globe trotting adventure now. They're all over the place trying to seek out the location of this other dial. Meanwhile, the Nazis are on the trail. They have the US government at their disposal because of the work they helped them with with, you know, the whole the moon landing thing. It's not that long of a partnership though, because eventually the lead CIA agent Mason, I think they're CIA or FBI or whatever. It doesn't matter. She gets shot and killed. Maybe the most useless character in the entire movie. I truly don't understand why she was in this. The whole partnership with the US government was essentially pointless and we could have shaved good chunks of this movie down by getting rid of the subplot. We're now in a boat with for some reason Antonio Banderas. I don't know why he's in this. It was kind of nice to see. I like Banderas. That was fun. Still just a little weird. Like, I didn't know Antonio Banderas was going to be in this movie. This is my second time going to the bathroom. I have the bladder of an 80 year old geriatric man at this point. Oh, so I'm like Indiana Jones myself in the theater. Let's get it done. I got a lot of my shorts. Naturally Indiana Jones is going underwater at his age, even though there's like four dudes in the background with 12 pack abs super jacked. They're just kind of standing around modeling. But Indy's like, get out of the way whipper snapper. I got this. Hang on. What is that? What is that an eel? And then little stupid Teddy's like, yeah, it's an eel. It kind of looks like a snake. No, it doesn't look like a snake. Oh, why did you say snakes? Why did it have to be snakes? But wouldn't you know it before they can resurface those eels start to gang bang Indy. He's getting tagged team left and right. And he just can't deal with it. Mudflaps goes back to save him though. And this is where they really get that first bonding experience. She does like this guy. She really likes him. They return to the boat that the Nazis have now commandeered. The doctor is there. He's everywhere, of course, these villains always are. And he does a little monologue, a little preamble. And then Helena starts explaining what this tablet means, how it's a map where it's going to point them after doing some riddles. But then she reveals to Indy that she's got a stick of dynamite in her back pocket. And she's happy to see him. He struggles to light it because of his old 80 year old brittle bones. But eventually that flame is set. She pulls it out of her pocket, throws it at the bad guys. It scampers down into the basement. And then they all just kind of sit there for a while because the editing in this movie is bizarre. Normally you would throw it and boom, it blows up right away. But in this instance, then she throws it. It's like ting ting ting. And then they just kind of stand around for a second. So that was kind of a dick move. I know it's Indiana Jones. But because the tone of this is so much more serious and darker in nature, some of the stuff that silly antics really stand out and become egregious to me right after the explosion. We jump cut to the guys in the boat and it's already taking off away. They had three seconds to quickly run out of the boat, jump out of the other one, get the keys, put them in, start it up, get off the rope from the dock or whatever they did to hold the boat there. And then they're off to the races. This is not a four second deal. We're now in a little spice market while Indy and Fleabag try to figure out what to do next. Teddy steals some money, go gets an ice cream cone and then he gets stolen himself. Ain't that a bitch? Ain't that karma, teddy little shit? They throw him in the back of the car. Yeah, the Nazis are here already. They followed him. I might have gone to the bathroom three or four times during this movie and at one point just contemplated not coming back to the theaters. I might have just stood there looking in the mirror thinking, what am I doing with my life? We got one shot on this planet. And I'm sitting here at an almost three hour fucking Indiana Jones movie, two hours and 34 minutes. There's 30 minutes of trailer in the regal cinemas. 30 full minutes. So this is a full, genuine three hour tour. It takes me 20 plus minutes just to drive to the theater, another 20 plus minutes to drive home. I am spending almost four hours of my shitty day sitting in the theater watching Indiana Jones 5. What is my life anymore? I'm 40. At least Harrison Ford gets to relive the glory days, put on the hat, swing around in front of a green screen or a digital screen or whatever the hell they're doing, get de-aged, go into a theater with a bunch of his colleagues who stand up and clap for him for five minutes and he gets to tip the hat and he gets to appreciate what's unfolded. There he is up on the screen again for everyone to see. This guy's a fucking legend. He's 80. What am I gonna do when I'm 80? I'm gonna be on YouTube, dusting off a stupid shirt, talking about Indiana Jones 7, which is actually the new era of Indiana Jones. It's been started over by like Chris Pratt's son or something. God. Okay, I don't know how they actually get Teddy back. I also don't really care. They end up at a plane hangar and this is where Teddy really gets his chance to shine. Indiana Jones somehow gets kidnapped. Again, I don't know what was happening that I've completely forgotten how some of this stuff unfolded, but Mads Mickelson has him and they're now going to test out the time. Oh, I skipped over a huge chunk of area in this movie. God, this movie is long. So tedious. He and Mouse Trap or whatever her name is, they go, they follow the the wave finder or whatever Star Wars thing they have into the caverns. They meet Athena or one of the goddesses and there's this whole water displacement thing. They go in the water. It's down a trap door and then they're off to the races. They find a watch and they find some other items that have no reason to exist in this room at this time and place. It's telling them that this fissure system works. This dial of destiny. There's something to it. And by the way, I know it's not called the dial of destiny. That's just the title of the movie. It's just a dial. Destiny's never, I think, mentioned. That's just for the title itself, but I'm saying it. I'm saying it because it's easy to say as opposed to the Archimidus or whatever the hell it's called that I said earlier. Mads is always there. He takes the dial. Again, we're going to just jump to them getting on a plane and actually using this thing. Indies with them. Fleabags on a motorcycle, driving through the rain, riding the storm out, Arjo Speedwagon style. She hitches a ride onto the wheel of the plane, which brings her up into the bay or whatever. However, planes work. And then we have dumbass Teddy who has hot wire to plane that he's never been in. He doesn't know how to fly. And he figures it out like lickety split. Just no issues at all. There's a dude sleeping. The pilot's actually in this plane. He wakes up. He's like, What are we doing? Teddy's like, I got you, bro. Teddy follows the other plane that's got a whole bunch of Nazis now in full garb, ready to go. And the plan is to go back to when the Nazis were starting to really, really become something truly special in their fucked up eyes and have this new doctor take over knowing everything he knows and how Hitler was such a disappointment. He's going to lead the charge. He's going to do it the right way. But he didn't anticipate all the years that went by and the different scientific things that Harrison Ford's yelling out in the background. And when they go through that fissure, they end up back where Archimedes is at. This is roughly 213 BC. So just a little off from the Nazi times. Yeah, they're in 213 BC. Archimedes is there. He sees this plane flying overhead. This is the most interesting aspect of the movie, the time jumping displacement shit. And I wish they would have done more with it. I think they could have had some real fun, some real zany adventures in this thing. But they don't. We're just here. There's a big battle taking place. They think that their plane is a beast, a dragon, they're shooting at it, trying to take it down. Archimedes knows what's up though. He knows that they use this dial. He knows it works. It's revealed that it works. And we have a touching moment where our hero is ready to die. He's ready to stake his claim here. Oh my God, I forgot. I forgot. I forgot the entire setup to this moment. It all led to this. He talked about earlier in the film that if he could use the dial, he would go back and convince his son, Mutt, not to enlist in war because then Mutt wouldn't die. I know this is, I know this is supposed to be a sad touching moment in the film, but let's make no qualms about it. Most people did not like Shia in Indiana Jones 4. Mutt was not a character that people were into. Shia in real life has had a lot of issues in Hollywood. I don't know anything about it really. I just know that he's basically kind of ousted from all of it now. He's not really in movies, whether that's his choice or Hollywood's or I don't know what's going on. I don't care. The fact that they then use this to kill his character off and play it for sentimental purposes is incredibly disingenuous and I don't buy this shit. Okay, just because people are telling me I'm supposed to feel bad for him now and sad, no. No, we had one movie with Mutt. Indiana and him did not have a great relationship through most of it and by the time it was done, nobody was like yay Mutt, I want to see more of him. So this whole premise essentially exists to get rid of Mutt and to get rid of Marion because they know what to do with her ass in this movie. She's just as old. They do have her show up at the end in a nice little scene, but they of course are having rocky relationships. They were married, they got divorced. That nice happy ending from the fourth film was apparently very short-lived because Mutt would have died not that many years later and Marion would have left his ass because Indy is again, he's miserable. He's depressed at his home fighting with his wife. This is what I want from a pulpy adventure character. This is how I want to remember Indiana Jones fighting with his ex-wife. That's fun. So yeah, he's ready to die. God, what the fuck? But Old Fleabag isn't ready to give up on him yet. She has made a connection with this guy so she knocks him out and when he wakes up, he's in bed at home. He was knocked out for a very long time. I would imagine days if not weeks. I really don't know the fact that they were able to get back through that thing and you know land again and then have to get him to the hospital and get him back to America. This is a couple-day project at least. But yeah, he doesn't remember any of it. Anyway, he's back there. Marion's there. It's a touching little scene. And then we close this bad boy with a beautiful black spotlight, nicely feathered, goes down to his hat, which is hanging on a line outside. And like that's it. He hung it up quite literally. But then right before it fades in, whoop, he snatches the hat again because he's not done yet. I can't wait until Indiana Jones 6. We're a spry 100-year-old Harrison Ford. He's back in the saddle for one last ride. Okay, that was a very long spoiler-filled review of Indiana Jones. I'm sure I still miss some stuff. This was an almost three-hour movie. I want to know your thoughts though. Am I way too harsh on this movie? Did you think the spectacle was amazing? I found some of the set pieces were okay. They had pros and cons. Some of the action was good. Most of it though, I just have been there before. I've seen it before and I want to shut the door on this franchise. Start anew. Which is actually going to be the topic for a podcast I have in a couple weeks, not this next one, but maybe the one after that. It's going to be what timeless characters should just stay timeless? Indiana Joneses of the world, the Han solos, ironically also Harrison Ford. Characters like that, the Ethan Hunts from the Mission Impossible, the John Wicks. Can other people pick up these mantles years down the road and make them their own or should some of them just stay left preserved? You don't have to always have a new Indiana Jones. Maybe that can just be Harrison Ford's thing, which is why they spent the time to de-age him instead of just casting a younger actor. Which is why Chris Pratt never did pick up that hat and play the role, because people are genuinely connected to Harrison Ford's performance. I personally think we make new stories with new characters. You can set them in the same spirit. You can even set them in the same universe. But there's no reason to keep reinventing the same wheel, especially one that's working perfectly well. Those Indiana Jones movies are timeless. And unfortunately, I don't put this one in that camp. But let me know in the comments. Please like the video if you had some fun. Subscribe if you haven't. I post tons of movie reviews, rants, commentary, live streams, podcasts every week. We'd love to have you stick around. All right, take care.