Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny - 4K Digital Review

[Michael Scott]

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Movie:
Video:
Audio:
Extras: :
Final Score:


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Movie
I may be a bit biased, but I firmly believe Indiana Jones ended with The Last Crusade. Even though Lucas and Spielberg were involved with Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, it just never seemed to be really necessary. Harrison was aging really heavily at the time, and the addition of Shia LaBeouf was one of those embarrassments that would ring throughout history. It just wasn’t a good addition, and pretty much everyone hailed it as the final nail in the coffin of Indiana Jones. But as with zombies and bad political ideologies, nothing is ever truly dead, and Disney decided to bring out Ford for one last romp….again.

As with everything post social media peak, NOTHING is safe from being criticized and lambasted over the internet. One side of the political fence yells at the other for being too critical, while the other side screams the word “woke!” at everything and anything in order to get clicks. Aaaaaaaaaaand, 9 times out of 10 when I go and watch a film it’s never as badly “woke” as people made it out to be. Being a bit of a conservative myself I tend to be cautious about using the “woke” terminology, so when Dial of Destiny got labeled the wokiest woke film that ever woked I decided to just ignore conversations about the film and simply experience it for myself.

Well, what might my thoughts be on the first non Spielberg Indiana Jones film? Well, it’s nowhere near as woke as people made it out to be, but it is NOT a good movie either. It weirdly manages to never be boring or slow, yet never be exciting or invigorating either. It reeks of corporate intervention and a need to make “next product” in a sea of remakes, reimaginings and looting of past successful IPs that studios have been trying to farm for the better part of the last 7 years (ish).

The film starts with a series of flashbacks with a younger Indiana (de-aged Harrison Ford) once more raiding a Nazi supply train for an artifact, only to end up with an even better artifact. The Dial of Destiny, which was supposedly built by Archimedes and was fabled to allow time travel (in a way). Barely escaping with his life, Indy and compatriot Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) barely escape the train with a piece of the clock, and subsequently blend back into regular life. Years late we see a tired and extremely old Dr. Jones on his retirement day from his tenureship. He looks old, beaten, worn out, and frankly sick and tired with the world as he’s cast aside for a younger generation. His bitter pity party is broken up by the presence of Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), the daughter of Basil, looking to commiserate with an old friend.

Unfortunately she’s after more than a few laughs and a drink from her god uncle. Helena has turned professional thief over the years and lures Indy into revealing the location of the Dial of Destiny piece that he and her father owned years ago, forcing Indy to chase after her to the middle east to try and rectify the situation. Insert rogue CIA agents who are being manipulated by a German Nazi scientist named Dr. Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) that wants the clock too, Sallah (John Rhys-Davies) a ton of fan service to prior Indy movies, and a general sense of chaos in what will likely the FINAL film in the series.

As I said above. The movie is not that bad. It’s not a train wreck like we were worried about, but it is bland and tasteless as well. Poor Harrison Ford looks like he’d rather be anywhere else but the set of this film, and the action feels over budgeted and over used to the point where nothing seems to be “fun” anymore. However, even a bored Harrison Ford performance is better than most other performances, and Ford is still an endearing part of our cinematic history, so I can’t fault the guy too much for looking for another big payday. Then there’s Mads who can’t turn in a bad performance even if he wanted. Vollerl is the quintessential Nazi scumbag that everyone loves to hate, and his performance (despite being hamstrung in the script) is stellar. The WORST part of the film by far happens to be Phoebe Waller-Bridge. She’s even more insufferable that Shia’s “Mutt’ from Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and by the time the movie ends you honestly hope Vollers Nazi’s finish her off so that we don’t have to listen to her anymore. It very much hearkens back to my The Flash review where I stated that the worst part of the movie was having two Ezra Millers. Just transpose that idea from Ezra to Phoebe and you get where I'm coming from.




Rating:

Rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action, language and smoking




Video:

Shot digitally, the film looks heavily stylized in an effort to blend it with the previous films in the franchise. Lots of cream and tan filters are used throughout, giving it that sort of dusty “parchment” colored tones that are all the rage these days. The heavy HEAVY use of CGI and De-aging adds a layer of softness to the image, but there is still plenty of details to go around. The train sequence in the past is one of the best shots of the entire movie, with deep browns, army greens, and great use of black levels to create a mesmerizing sequence. The film starts to fall apart under too much pressure during the last battle though, with so much CGI that I noticed it very obviously, as well as some banding that came into play (could have been my stream though).








Audio:

The Dolby Atmos track found on my VUDU stream sounded really good. Usually I notice how bitstarved streaming Atmos tracks are, but this one sounded pretty robust and full. Action sequences pack a serious punch, and surround usage is very explosive and immersive as Indy chases after Helena. The end battle with the planes flying overhead really reverberate with low end, and the full immersive characteristics of the battle make for a nicely engaging track. This should be a SERIOUS treat on physical disc.







Extras:

• The Making of:
• Trailer

Final Score: ​

Dial of Destiny is what it is. A lackluster and formulaic film cannibalizing older IP’s hoping to make a big payday. Sadly for Disney, things did NOT pay out at the box office, and it’s looking like Dial of Destiny will be one of the bigger box office fails of the year. Which is sort of sad, because there were some interesting themes run throughout the movie that would have worked better had this been a bit too little too late. Mads was an excellent villain, and I genuinely love to see Harrison Ford on screen (and the De-Aging tech used on him actually was pretty good). As I said, it is what it is.


Technical Specifications:

Starring: Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Antonio Banderas, Karen Allen, Mads Miklelsen
Directed by: James Mangold
Written by: James Mangold, Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth, Phlip Kauffman, David Koepp
Aspect Ratio: 2.39:1
Audio: English: Dolby Atmos
Subtitles: English
Studio: Disney
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 154 Minutes
Digital Release Date: August 29th, 2023

Recommendation: Meh

 

[Asere]

Thanks for the review. I may still watch it just to say I completed them all but, they need to stop.

 

[Johnnie]

The only reason I would stream a movie is to see and hear if it is good enough to purchase the Blu-ray so