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Tinashe Kusema
Film Review
ACCORDING to one of my favourite sitcom characters, Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons), the Indiana Jones franchise is “the lovechild of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, two of the most gifted filmmakers of our generation”.
The series began in 1981 with the film “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. In its 42 years, the franchise has spun four movies, numerous video games, comic books and a prequel television series.
However, all good things do come to an end and “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” is set to be the film that brings it to a close.
For many, mostly those of my generation and the ones before, it has been one entertaining thrill ride.
The bad news, however, is that “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” is not the ending this franchise deserves. It is not the ending we expected, wanted or deserved.
To put it bluntly, the “Indiana Jones” movie franchise ends on a whimper.
One of the key reasons behind this disappointing end is that Paramount Pictures waited for too long to complete the five-picture deal that was originally agreed on when “Raiders of the Lost Ark” first came out in 1981.
The movie ticks all the boxes, with an elderly Harrison Ford returning as the titular world-renowned globe-trotting archaeologist and college professor, Dr Henry Indiana Jones Jr.
There are a couple of cameos from some of his notable friends and former acquaintances like John Rhys-Davies, as Sallah; Toby Jones, as Basil Shaw; and Karen Allen, as Marion Ravenwood. Photographs of Sean Connery and Shia LaBeouf are used to represent their respective “Last Crusade” and “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” characters Henry Jones Snr and Mutt Williams, respectively.
The franchise’s iconic theme blasts out, periodically, throughout the movie. The action, history and Ford’s performance are all classic Indiana Jones.
However, film has evolved and so have the audiences.
Today’s ordinary moviegoer wants more than basic action, fights and a simple plot. They want to be moved by language, computer-generated imagery and sit through complex plots that are all not part of this particular franchise.
The film picks up years after Jones has retired from the life of both a globetrotting adventurer and professor, when his goddaughter Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) shows up, enquiring about an old relic that Indy and her father stole from the Germans during World War Two.
The relic is said to be half of an ancient artefact known as the Dial of Destiny and it is rumoured to possess the power to transport whoever yields it through space and time.
In short, it is a time-travelling device.
An old nemesis of Jones and former Nazi scientist Jurgen Voller (Mads Mikkelson) is also looking for the two halves of the device as he seeks to return to the war, kill Adolf Hitler and correct all his mistakes to ensure Germany’s victory.
However, I found it rather weird watching an aged Jones (and by extension, Ford) run around fighting bad guys, climbing walls and evading Nazis and the police.
One missed opportunity from the writing team of Jez Butterworth, John Henry Butterworth, David Koepp and James Mangold is that they totally butchered the dynamic of Jones and Shaw.
Rather than accept that both Ford and his Jones character are old and pass the torch to Shaw, the film’s writers made this movie an Indiana Jones-centric flick.
Do not get me wrong here, Waller-Bridge and Ford have great chemistry and the former does a great job in matching the latter in the characterisation department. However, one cannot get past the aging thing.
Even the de-aging technology used to depict a younger version of Ford’s Indiana Jones was terrible. The supporting cast fails to stand out, with Mikkleson totally wasted in his role as Voller. Apart from giving off Nazi vibes throughout the movie, he turns out to be nothing but a brooding Nazi who spends the majority of the movie looking menacing.
His henchmen are all one-trick ponies.
I widely recommend this movie for those diehard fans of the franchise as nostalgia comes thick and fast.
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Online Reporter