Movie Review: "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" Unfiltered & With Spoilers

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Before I did this spoiler version of a review of the new Indiana Jones movie, "Dial of Destiny," I wanted to go and see it again. 

Late last week, I finally did. And you know what? It was better and more fun the second time around. My guess is that this was because I already went in knowing what would happen, and was not distracted by possible hopes or expectations or the distraction of hoping that it would not be disappointing. I had already seen the movie once before, and knew what to expect. So watching it again meant having an idea already of what it would be like and not guessing, and thus being able instead to just focus on the quality of the scenes.

Indeed, it came across better the second time. I actually liked it more the second time around, possibly because I knew what to expect. The focus was on simply appreciating the movie this time, which came more easily. Now, my suspicion is that the movie was better than my initial impression of it after the first viewing.

So again, this is a review filled with spoilers. If you have not seen the movie yet and wish to do so, and do not want it spoiled, then this is your final warning not to continue reading, as there will be major spoilers ahead.

Spoilers ******Spoilers******Spoilers

Okay, don't say that you weren't warned.

The first twenty or so minutes of the movie feature the de-aged version of Indiana Jones. It takes us back to the golden era of the Indiana Jones movies, as the two best movies, in my opinion, were when the Nazis were the bad guys. Not surprisingly, this is the best part of this movie. It is exciting, suspenseful. A bit too dark, although I understand that they intentionally kept it darker than normal to help make the de-aged Harrison Ford more convincing. His voice is a little gruff and, frankly, sounds old. But otherwise, it was good overall. That said, Jürgen Voller (played very capably by Mads Mikkelsen), the man who becomes the main villain in the movie, is violently thrown off the train when hit in the head (it seemed like he was hit right in the face) by a metal sign post. Yet, not only does this not kill him - and he could have been killed either by the impact itself, or when he was thrown off the speeding train - but it leaves no discernible mark on him at all later in the movie. Not very realistic, and it felt a bit distracting. 

Then, we get the modern day Harrison Ford portraying a much older Indiana Jones at about 80 years old. I was afraid that they might make him into a sort of Archie Bunker type, loudly complaining against the loud and disrespectful counterculture of those times, particularly hippies. Yes, it was only too easy to see him getting some cheap laughs by taking shots at them. But they went another direction altogether with it, for which I am personally thankful. There is only one scene, really, where he flirts with being like this, when he is woken up fairly early in the morning crudely when a young neighbor of his is blasting "Magical Mystery Tour" by the Beatles. Indy walks across his apartment shirtless and only in his underwear, and yells at this neighbor to turn it down. When that doesn't work, he bangs on the guy's door. In fact, he is having a party, and this young neighbor simply tells him that today is "Moon Day." Not much later, we indeed find out that there is a parade for the astronauts who just shortly before had successfully landed and walked on the moon, and returned back safely. 

After this, we get out first real glimpse into the life that Jones now leads at about 80 years old. He has lost his son "Mutt", who we later learn signed up for the war in Vietnam and has gotten himself killed. That takes care of the absence of Shia LaBeouf, who I actually once heard Harrison Ford hated in real life. One way or another, he was not coming back, so it seems this is how they took care of it. The strain of this loss has proven too much for Indy and Marion Ravenwood. Remember, they had gotten married at the end of "Crystal Skull."  Now, we see papers showing that they are going through divorce proceedings. In fact, Indy at one point hides an image of a younger Marion on his refrigerator with a magnet. We also catch a glimpse of an American flag in a triangle box, signifying the less of a veteran (again, presumably his son "Mutt") on one of his shelves. 

Next, we see Indy at his job. He is still a professor, only now he is no longer at Princeton University, but somewhere in New York City, perhaps at Columbia or NYU, I am guessing. He is teaching a very disinterested class about Archimedes and the invasion of Syracuse. Some of the students smile at this, but Indy understands the misperception, and makes it clear that he is not talking about the city of Syracuse in upstate New York, but rather, the one in Sicily. One young person - we later find out that she is not a student in the class - suddenly bursts out with very specific answers, which of course gets Indy going on the subject. Thus, we learn all about the dial that Archimedes has built, and which will be the McGuffin for this movie. Briefly, we also already heard the main villain of the movie Jürgen Voller explain to uninterested Nazis that this dial was real, and had no unexplained mythical powers, but worked logically, according to the laws of mathematics. It will not make the man using it an emperor or a dictator, he says, but rather, a God. So thus, by now we have an idea of just how powerful this thing is supposed to be.

Indy's class is interrupted when, for some reason, a bunch of enthusiastic young people come storming in with a television and talk about the parade for the astronauts who landed on the moon, which is going on right outside on the streets at this morning. Class is over, in other words. We next see that Indy is thrown a retirement party. He grumpily thanks everyone for putting up with him all of these years. He walks out onto the streets, and gives a total stranger his retirement gift, which is a clock. The movie began with the ticking of a clock, and the dial is yet another symbol for time. This clock seems to serve as yet another reminder of the passing of time, as well as giving us a chance to see just how disinterested and grumpy Indy has become, seemingly with everything. 

From the time that his class was cut short, to the retirement party, and now to the bar, where Indy appears to be attempting to forget his sorrows for a little while with a drink, he has been being followed, although he does not know it. He is being followed by Helena Shaw (played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge), although she, in turn, is also being followed by someone, even though she herself does not appear to know it, by CIA Agent Mason (played by Shaunette Renée Wilson), More on her shortly. In any case, Shaw finally sits next to Indy and introduces herself as Helena, the daughter of Basil Shaw, who is a friend of Indy's and helped him during the opening part of the movie. They talk, and she reveals her interest in finding the Dial of Destiny that Archimedes has built. 

There is a history between them, although it is nothing like the other main women in previous Indiana Jones movies, mercifully. Helena was just a child when Indy took the Dial of Destiny from her father, who was scaring her with a violent desire to destroy it. He allows Indy to take it, but on condition that he also promise to destroy it. Indy promises, but never quite gets around to it. Helena was under the notion that the Dial is lost somewhere in a river by the French Alps. In fact, it is much closer, and Indy takes her to show it at his university. 

Still, it is only one piece of the dial, and not the whole thing. So it is largely harmless, right? Well, by now, we see that CIA Agent Mason has her team assembled and are trying to also apparently obtain the Dial of Destiny. We find other members of the team, who use sinister methods, killing anyone who gets in the way. Agent Mason is shocked and appalled, but largely powerless to stop them. Not surprisingly, they are led by Jürgen Voller, who has apparently been instrumental in the triumph of getting man onto the moon and safely back. Now, perhaps as compensation, he wants the Dial. 

They somehow know that Indy's Dial is at the University, and also somehow know that Indy will be there. Helena takes the Dial and runs, basically leaving Indy to the mercy of the bad guys. There is a bit of action, but Indy is much older and cannot either fight or run as well as he once could, and so he is taken prisoner. Helena, meanwhile, goes onto the roof, and there is a brief Easter Egg of another Harrison Ford movie, "The Fugitive," when he is being pursued by US Marshalls, who observe him from the roof while an Irish St Patrick's Day parade is going on. The parade below is not for St. Patrick's, but it is the same music, and much of the action takes place on a roof, with agents spotting Helena, then losing her, much like the police agents in The Fugitive lose Harrison Ford's character. Interesting Easter egg there. 

Indy now seems to be a prisoner. He is being led through the streets, where there is an antiwar protest going on. Evidently, Indy  - apparently seriously - starts chanting "Hell no, we won't go!" and gets the crowd to go along with him. He then manages to make an escape, although the chase is on. This is the point where he manages to mount a horse, where he runs past the men who just came from the moon. But he is being chased, and winds up going underground - literally - to the Subway system. He manages an escape, barely escaping death from the subway trains themselves. Of course, he manages. And he gets some help from Sallah, his old adventure buddy from the first and third movie (the two best in the franchise, in my opinion). 

Now, here's the thing: Sallah reappearing was initially exciting. But how he was used in this movie was a bit more puzzling. He longs for one more adventure, his words even used in the trailer for the film. Indeed, he tells Indy that there will be an auction of antiquities in Tangier, Morocco. He tells Indy that he is thirsting for jut one more adventure. He takes Indiana to the airport, then tells him he has his passport, and is prepared to go. And then he doesn't go! His presence in this movie is, frankly, basically negligible. You almost question why he was in there at all, frankly. 

Anyway, we now are in Tangier. Indy arrives, and goes into the building where the auction is taking place. He surprises Helena, although she has some surprises of her own. She has a crafty ally in the young Teddy Kumar (played by Ethann Isidore). He begins to play a prominent role from this point on. Indy interrupts the auction, but there are powerful people there who want the Dial of Destiny, which includes the Nazis, who show up just on time, and without really any explanation as to how they knew about this. There is a wild chase through the streets of Tangier involving three different parties (four even, because Indy is not really with or even fully allied with Helena or Toddy at first). It is cool, and shows the streets of Tangier, although the scene gets a bit repetitive and goes on a bit longer than it perhaps should. 

By the end of the chase, Indiana tells them that he will need him to get the Dial. It seems almost at this point that Indiana takes almost a back seat to Helena and Toddy for most of the rest of the movie. That is not fully the case, although he seems to play almost a supporting role, and is never quite the fierce adventurer that we know from this point on in the movie.  

Indy has a friend who owns a boat named Renaldo, played by Antonio Banderas. They go on an aquatic adventure, and somehow find the location of the ship where one of the parts of the Dial of Destiny (remember, it was broken to pieces) is, sunk at the bottom of the sea. There are no sharks, although there are eels, which Toddy jokes are reminiscent of snakes. We all know that Indy hates snakes, of course. Still, the team dives down and manages to retrieve the treasure chest (that's what it seems like it is, anyway). But they notice another boat has come aboard, and seemingly with hostile intentions. Somehow, the Nazis have found them again, and they are once again in charge. They need the translation, but Indy refuses to help. Helena offers her help, so long as they pay her asking price of $100,000, which they do with diamonds, right then and there. She translates, but plays a trick, allowing Indiana Jones to light a fuse, which only hurts the bad guys, and allows the good guys to make their escape on the other boat. 

Yes, the good guys make their escape. But they go West, not East, and this is noticed by Jürgen Voller, the leader of the Nazis. And somehow, the Nazis thus figure out exactly where Indy and his group are headed: Syracuse. There, the bad guys somehow manage to isolate and capture Toddy. Helena is distraught, but Indy feels confident that the kid is crafty and will find a way to make an escape. Sure enough, he is right, as we kind of figured he would be, right? 

So Helena and Indy go to the Ear of Dionysius cavern, where they find Archimedes' tomb. Of course, the Nazis also know exactly where to go, somehow. So there is the chase, during which time, Toddy attempts two escapes, and manages to succeed the second time around, in the process drowning the big thug character of the villains by outsmarting him. Indy and Helena, meanwhile, are scaling a small cliff, and Indy once again shows his age, outright questioning what he is doing and why he is doing this at his age, and with all of the injuries and aches and pains he has sustained, including an Easter egg for fans, by asking Helena rhetorically whether she had ever been forced to drink the blood of Kali. When they finally get to the grave of Archimedes, they find the other part of the Dial, and also find him wearing a watch, even though back then, clocks had not yet been invented, let alone watches. 

Of course, the bad guys come, and they take everything at gun point. Helena makes an escape with Toddy, but Indy is shot, apparently right by  his heart, although it looked like it was in his heart. He is basically rendered completely powerless from this point on. Still, instead of killing him right then and there, the bad guys decide to take him along for the trip. By this point, we finally find out - a bit too late, I suspect - why Jürgen Voller is so obsessed with the Dial of Destiny. He is a Nazi, and he wants to go back in time - to just weeks before the official start of the European part of World War II, when Hitler is about to invade Poland. He says that he watched the war and saw every mistake, and that Hitler squandered the opportunity to actually build the Thousand Year Reich. Voller intends to replace Hitler, and with his leadership, to avoid the mistakes made and to win the war. In other words, to build the dominant Thousand Year Reich, which will presumably be the superpower of this new, alternative world order.

Meanwhile, Helena has managed to get a motorbike and caught up with the Nazi's plane taking off, heading towards the time hole, if you will, which the Antikythera of Archimedes managed to accurately predict. They travel through, with Voller expecting to be in Sicily in late August of 1939, then to set coordinates to Munich to get rid of Hitler and take over himself. Only, Indy explains that he has overlooked something. Archimedes did not know about continental drift, and the accuracy of this Dial of Destiny is thus compromised. They might not go back to the time that Voller expects. Voller suddenly has doubts, and demands to pull back, but it is too late. They already go through the time hole, are in fact powerless to stop themselves. And they see a war, alright. Only this is the invasion of Syracuse from the time of Archimedes, thousands of years ago. Toddy, meanwhile, has somehow managed to fly a plane and followed them throughout all of this. The two planes are taken as dragons by the ancients, which probably makes sense. 

The ancients begin attacking  the "dragons" and do some serious damage, at least to the plane of the Nazis, even though Toddy's plane is magically spared. The Nazis have become obsessed with fighting back against the ancients, and become so blinded by this, that they lose control of the airplane, and things just deteriorate. Helena shows up, and she and Indy make their escape from the doomed plane just in the nick of time. The Nazis are killed, largely through their own blindness and ultimate incompetence and rage.

Indy and Helena actually meet Archimedes, and Archimedes tells Indy that they were always destined to meet. Indy wants to stay here, this was his lifelong dream. Helena refuses to accept this, and ultimately, she punches him out with one shot. Yes, she KO's him. I guess this makes sense, since he is 80 years old, and also, he has been shot in his chest and is effectively very weak. Still, this was a disappointing ending for a hero who has typified toughness, and fought against some massive and fierce fighters, and come out on top. A one punch knockout? That was a controversial ending, and not many people liked it. I will admit to being one of them.

Now, we reached the final part of the movie. Indy wakes up back in his apartment in New York City. the Dial of Destiny is there, next to him. Helena notices that he wakes up, but everyone is all smiles. Then, in comes Marion Ravenwood, the final surprise of the movie. She is simply bringing in groceries, but Indy is clearly shocked to see her. They have not talked in a long time, and Indy's assumption is that she wants nothing to do with him. But in fact, they reconcile. The others leave the apartment and leave the couple to talk. Then, there is a sweet ending which harkens back to the first movie, with Indy asking Marion where it doesn't hurt, and she point to her elbow, and then her lips, where they kiss. 

And that's the movie!

Overall, as mentioned earlier, I liked it much better the second time around. That said, there were some aspects of the movie which, frankly, I felt were not as strong. Now, I am not one of those crazy fans who will claim that these new movies "ruined their childhood" or anything. However, I really did not like the whole Indy getting knocked out thing at the end. And if people had a problem with the believability of aliens in the last movie, time travel here really stretches the imagination even more. Also, Voller getting clocked in the head and knocked off a speeding train, then not only surviving, nut not having so much as a mark on him, that also bothered me. 

Still, I enjoyed the movie. It entertained me, and somehow this was more the case the second time around than the first time. Is it one of the great movies of the Indiana Jones franchise? No. But it is an ending, and it does certainly have some strengths, albeit some weaknesses, as well. Keep in mind, this is an 80-year old version of Indiana Jones. It does, however, give Indiana and Marion a sweet end together, which I think I like more and more each time I think of it. 

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny - Spoiler Review