I am curious to know your impressions. I really liked the film. The framing, the photography, the settings, the deliberately slow pace (the exact opposite of the third film), and even the ending, which I liked because we get to see something historically exceptional in great detail, not just for a moment.
I would say this movie is more “traditionalist” than the original Indiana movies, if that makes sense.
And I laughed when the bad guys, in the end, started shooting at the Romans for no reason at all. 
2 Likes
I’ve yet to watch it, but I’m actually surprised to see a positive opinion. That’s not what I was expecting based on what I’m shown within my bubble 
. Not that I’ve seen more than the headlines, as I want to avoid spoilers. I’ll be sure to report back in a week or two …
1 Like
Indy still has some fun set pieces left in him.
The stuff in between? Maybe, not as much fun but never bad. I do think the broad strokes and dynamics are there and I like the ideas. And while it is a fine decision to to dial back the jokes compared to the last couple of entries in the series, it’s lacking about 20% of the spark that I’d still like it to retain between the set pieces. At times during dialogue scenes, it verges on becoming dull.
This time our Nazi antagonist (Mads Mikkelsen!) is actually a believer in the ideology, which takes us in a different direction and leads us into our finale in an interesting way. Then the finale itself was kind of a ballsy move and I loved it for that. For me it really worked.
Overall, a fun farewell. I could see this improving on re-watches, too.
Oh and one other comment. The thing about de-aging effects in high budget films is that they are both super impressive and yet not nearly good enough to be effective. They just wind up being a huge distraction any time they are used for more than a few shots.
2 Likes
Went to see it today: I had zero expectations after the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and having avoided any trailers/pictures/spoilers. I sat there, with a big smile on my face, from the first minutes onwards for at least 40 minutes!
Some of the action scenes involving vehicles are a bit too long winded, but that’s something I’ve always found in the old movies too. Or any movie for that matter. It gets better when you rewatch them.
Technically Dial of Destiny is a return to great form: better lighting, slower pacing (Raiders is slooooow by todays standards), slower shots in non-action sequences to help set the mood and mystery of discovering.
Even knowing the de-aging is a CGI effect, I chose to believe it and that gave me that happy grin for the first X minutes.
Honestly the only thing that felt unnatural with the de-aging was the voice that sounded off (too deep to match younger Indy, but even then I thought: perhaps he had a rough couple of nights leading up to this point or he hurt his throat).
Rewatching Crystal Skull earlier today for the first time since it came out, I thought that movie wasn’t as bad as I remembered, but it is by far weaker in story and just awful to watch with the constant excessive light giving everyone a green screen feel even if they might not have been. A few hours later, after having watched Dial of Destiny, Crystal Skull sinks back in the quicksand pit it belongs to (or was it drysand, Indy?). By the way, I’ve noticed that scene involving both quicksand, a giant snake and a young wannabe reminded me of something :
Dial of Destiny is a good movie, only bittersweet because it is the last time to experience the fun and the thrills of Indy.
This resonated for me in the theme of the movie which lets you think about ageing (both the actors as the viewers) without making it feel forced.
I’m not sure if my younger self would have liked it as much, but we’ve also aged since 1989. For a less biased opinion, my kids who just got to watch the previous movies for the first time in preparation liked this one too and did not complain about Indy being old/not cool/…
The finale divided opinions a bit more as some found it too hard to believe, but I’m in the believers camp on this one. Unlike in Crystal Skull, the end reveal is something that is hinted at enough to prepare the viewer, and just as unrealistic as the ones in the first three movies, which is what I expect from an Indy story.
At one point Indy says something like “it’s not so much what you believe, it’s how hard you believe it”, which is a pretty good fourth-wall breaking summary.
Another thing they got better again after Crystal Skull was taking the time to drop the treasure-hunting clues ahead of their solution and pace them so viewers can sleuth along. Taking time for establishing shots and music that spend more time to build atmosphere and tension were back as well after their cruel omission in Crystal Skull.
Mmmm it seems it is really hard to review Dial without comparing to the previous entry.
But I’m glad they could end the series on a positive note.
2 Likes
I was wondering what was the purpose of that sentence. It felt out of context.
A picture I received from my daughter who’s in Greece right now.
Yes, the actual Antikythera, in a museum, where it belongs.
4 Likes
I really exists? 
I’ve seen pictures of it before, and the movie version was rather weird in contrast. Not to mention its abilities.
Anyway …
I guess on the surface level the film was pretty good, easily the 4th-best in the series. Not a dull moment either. So I’m glad I’ve seen it on the big screen.
But in a way it reminded me a lot of Star Wars Episode VII: take some well known ingredients, shake well, and out comes something that seems to be the proper stuff, but it’s a bit flat and without soul. Also, I felt the death rate of innocent bystanders was a bit excessive. And the handcuff scene felt needlessly cruel as well.
The whole sequence didn’t make that much sense to me. No reason to fly so low either. Must have been some die-hard Civilization fan at work: see, you can shoot down planes with bow and arrow!. Come to think of it, likely the same guy who wrote the horseman against tank scene in Last Crusade.
So to be fair, I guess the initial trilogy might not hold up too well either, when applying the same sort of scrutiny. But I think the plots of the original films felt a lot less contrived; they also didn’t require a major character with questionable morale and motivation to keep things in motion. Back then the bad guys were actually capable of this much, at least.
2 Likes
Sometimes that’s the point, no?
It’s a bit parodistic, tongue in cheek. That’s how I read it.
Short answer: I liked it.
Longer answer: I also found the car chases a bit too long and maybe repetitive, but the sense of adventure was great. I felt the ending scene could have been shorter, but I can’t complain. I liked that they killed Indy’s son.
Also I loved how the cars in Siracusa actually had black Siracusa license plates, as it should have been the case at the time. It’s a small detail but a very welcome one. I didn’t write down the plate number though to check if it was compatible with a car registered before 1969.
4 Likes