Damn, where’s the flying saucer when you need it?!
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023) is, sadly, a tired rehash of the previous three movies in this series, while the fourth, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), if anything, gets nothing more than an obscure head nod. Otherwise, it’s a boring collection of flash, lacking the meat necessary to make this fly.
The problem is that Professor Jones is no longer a driven character. The first installment of the series, and easily the best, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), features an up and coming Professor Jones who is absolutely driven in his quest for artifacts. How do we know this? Because every big decision he has to make has a moral dimension to it, and he tends to decide in his own favor and not that of morality. Just think of that first, heart-stopping sequence: His attempted theft, and that’s what it is, of an artifact representing a god of an Amazonian tribe. I mean, properly speaking, this is not even an archaeological find; it’s just out and out thievery.
It’s old, it’s valuable, and its acquisition will prove Jones’ prowess as a leading archaeologist. But when he steals it, it leads to the death of his remaining assistant, the other having deserted him, and Jones’ prize is taken from him by a foe, competing archaeologist René Belloq, who only wants it for its financial value, and is ruthless enough to order Jones’ execution; only Jones’ cleverness saves him.
The excavation of the Egyptian temple to steal information concerning the Ark, the discovery that Marion still lives and is imprisoned in Belloq’s tent in the desert, and Jones’ opportunity to destroy the Ark during the Nazi trek to a Jewish sacred location and thus saving it from the Nazis, are all moral situations in which his choice, motivated by self-interest rather than by the communal good, secular or religious, leads to existential danger not only for Jones, but for anyone who is not a Nazi world-wide. This moral ambiguity is the core of the fascination with Professor Jones, along with his reactions to the dangers brought on by his moral choices, and in turn leads to a superior story.
But the Professor Jones of Dial of Destiny isn’t a morally ambiguous character. A divorcee with a dead son, he’s just a worn out old man, burdened with a god-daughter just clever enough to get herself into trouble, but not get out of trouble. Running for one’s life, or that of someone to which an attachment has been formed, may be understandable, but it lacks that burning question of What is he thinking? Instead, we know he’s trying to stay alive and rescue the god-daughter. Yes, he has a cool artifact with various rumors attached to it, but it’s secondary. That seriously hobbles the buzz, because we know he’ll survive, no matter how many bad guys he has to dodge and trick – these storytellers don’t dare kill him off, and that might be the only way to save this story.
OK, so here’s a SPOILER ALERT. An improvement to this story is this. The principal bad guy wants to go back in time to kill Hitler and take his place, using his knowledge of how Germany failed in World War II to obviate that loss, turning it into victory. How about if Professor Jones agrees and goes with in order to kill the bad guy after he kills Hitler? It could certainly cloud the moral arc of the story, rendering it more interesting.
But that would require a rewrite – or three – of this script, and I think they felt pressure from Disney to get it out. That’s too bad, as the acting talent and technical resources are certainly top notch. In the end, the storytellers are let down by a script that, no doubt, checked all the boxes for big chase scenes and clever fights and all that crap, but had no insight into why these things worked in Raiders, while failing here.
You’re a Raiders, Rhys-Davies, Ford, or Banderas completist? Then you have to see this installment. Otherwise, wait for the cheap seats. Too bloody long for too little payoff.
