Da da da da…da da da!
Grab your hats and whips, 3.5 readers. It’s time for a review of Indy 5. SPOILERS ABOUND!
Hype is weird, noble readers. This movie got a lot of it. Bad hype. Hate hype. All the social media comments and online reviews, youtube videos etc – it all gave me the impression that this flick had taken a big huge steamy corn infested dump all over the legacy of America’s favorite fictional archaeologist.
Indy turned into a pathetic old man! Indy bossed around by a mouthy dame the whole picture! Four decades of a beloved franchise flushed down the toilet in the name of radical feminism.
I only bought a ticket with the intention of hate watching it and writing a scathing review for all 7 of your eyes, but to my surprise, I ended up liking it. It wasn’t that bad a movie at all.
Now don’t get me wrong. The original trilogy was fabulous with a perfect ending that wrapped it all up nicely, so other than the profit motive, I’m not sure Hollywood wants to keep tinkering with it. Well, the answer is because Disney bought the Indy franchise when it bought Star Wars and the rest of Lucasfilm’s IP, and I can’t blame them for wanting a return on investment.
The story begins at the end of World War 2 with a CGI de-aged Indiana Jones infiltrating a train full of Nazis making a run for it before the Allies arrive. They’ve packed the train with a buttload of stolen artifacts, all the relics and artwork they need to sell and fund their post war exile abroad.
With colleague Basil Shaw in tow, the duo is on the hunt for the famed Spear of Destiny, the spear said to have pierced Christ’s flesh when he was crucified. Truth be told, the legend of this spear and how it was passed about through various European rulers and how their downfall often coincided with when they lost control of the spear would, in and of itself, make for a great flick, but its only a premise for our heroes to discover an entirely new MacGuffin, namely that the train is carrying Archimedes’ Dial, an Ancient Greek device that Shaw has been obsessed with for years, due to claims that it can be used to travel through time.
Preposterous, surmises Young Indy, and dutiful suspenders of disbelief that we are, we’re totally supposed to forget that Indy has seen the Ark of the Covenant melt people who looked at it, went mano y mano with a voo doo priest who rips the hearts from people’s chests and turns them into mindless zombies and oh yeah, there was that time he met a still-alive ancient knight who was guarding the holy grail, which he used to cure his father’s bullet wound.
SIDENOTE: I gotta say, this beginning scene felt like it could have been from a lost cut of an old Indy movie. The effects are modern, but the CGI is brilliant, such that it looks and sounds like a young Harrison Ford. One wonders if we aren’t only a few years away from new Indy movies where Ford lends his voice and likeness and lets Disney techs work their magic to bring us new tales set in Indy’s golden age of the 1930s and 40s.
But I suppose that involves a debate of whether or not CGI actors are a good thing. That’s a whole other kettle of fish.
Flash forward to 1969 and Indiana Jones is very old, sad and lonely. It’s his retirement day as a college professor. He’s bummed for without his job he has little to look forward to. Marion, who he married in his 60s according to the Crystal Skull, truly the shittiest of the Indy movies with the exception that at least it left Indy in the happy situation of having a wife and newly discovered son, has left him, because of course she has. I get the online criticism here to an extent. I mean, they don’t ALWAYS have to leave our heroes sad and lonely but other than suffering the woes of old age, Indy proves he still has some piss and vinegar left, as does Harrison Ford.
Indy’s sidekick in this film is Phoebe Waller-Bridge, a woman so excessively British that she probably had relatives who spit shined King Arthur’s codpiece and her blood type is fish and chips. She speaks English throughout the film, but you know, Englishy English. I’m trying to say I have no idea what she’s saying half the time because she’s absurdly British.
Her character, Helena Shaw, to put it simply, is a total asshole. She is Indy’s goddaughter as her father and Indy were once BFFS. She approaches Indy under the guise of being a grad student researching Archimedes’ Dial, but this is just a pretense to steal it and sell it to the highest bidder. Throughout the film she insults and betrays our fearless hero, and I think that online critics didn’t quite get the point that the intention was that her character was written specifically so that she’d come across as a dick. Indy, however, isn’t that pathetic, and goes tit for tat with her throughout the flick.
My complaint is the writers never offer an explanation as to why Helena is such an unscrupulous d-bag. We see her father was a very nice, moral man. We see she was nice as a child. If there was an event, a tragedy, a something or other than turned her into a money hungry scumbag willing to screw over a close family friend in the name of cold hard cash, we weren’t told about it.
But Indy and Helena become frenemies as their larger goal is to keep the dial out of the hands of the villainous Jurgen Voller, a Nazi scientist who dreams of using the dial to rewrite history and turn the Nazi’s defeat in 1945 into a permanent, never-ending world tour.
There’s some great car chases. Incorporation of history. Thrills and chills. Twists and turns. Fun cameos. All in all, a decent flick. Does it outshine the trilogy? No. As good as the trilogy? No. Does it make up for the doody fest that was the Crystal Skull? IMO, yes. It’s a good movie, a fun time, and its far from the crapfest the internet tongue waggers are making it out to be.
STATUS: Shelf-worthy. Worth a trip to the big screen.
My thoughts on the future of the Indy Franchise:
#1 – Key Huy Quan, who played Short Round in Temple of Doom, just had a major career comeback, winning an Oscar at 50. Maybe it’s time to see what Shorty’s doing as an adult.
#2 – If done right, I wouldn’t be against a Disney Plus animated series where Ford lends his voice and likeness to Indy cartoons of Indy’s younger days.
#3 – CGI actors are getting better and better so before you know it, we might actually see Young Indy movies where he looks as spry as he did in the trilogy.
#4 – There’s talk of Indy passing the torch. Maybe, but the thing is, the franchise is called “Indiana Jones.” If another character becomes an adventurer, they might be inspired by Indy but they aren’t Indy. They might make movies where a younger actor plays Indy in his prime, but the role is so much all about Ford.
#5 – But ultimately, this IP is worth big bucks. Disney bought it, so they’ll want to make bank off it. Let’s hope Harrison eats his wheaties.
Bookshelf Battle 