While I was visiting my older brother in Indiana in July, he took me to see the new Indiana Jones flick, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023), on an IMAX screen.

I did not go into the film with high expectations.  Everything I’d heard about the movie was negative:  Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s character was obnoxious; Indiana Jones’s advanced age is played to denigrate the character; the whole thing is another one of Kathleen Kennedy’s wish-fulfillment films (in which she casts an unlikable British brunette to be a stand-in for herself, an unlikable feminist studio exec).

Perhaps it’s because I went in with such low expectations that I actually found the movie to be not that bad.  Was it good?  Not really.  Should it have been nearly three hours long?  Absolutely not.  Was it as bad as critics made it out to be?  Well, that depends.

As I’ve noted before, the Indiana Jones franchise played all its cards early.  The two best films of the original trilogy, Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and The Last Crusade (1989) both featured Indy tracking down the greatest artifacts ever:  the Ark of the Covenant and the Holy Grail, respectively.  How do you top that?  The middle film in the series, the much-reviled Temple of Doom (1984), featured some magic stones.  How do you get excited about that (to be clear, I actually like Temple of Doom—it’s so unusual and dark—but it certainly pales in comparison to the bookends of the trilogy)?

Then there was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), which introduced space aliens to the Indiana Jones universe.  That took it too far:  the Indy films have always been about artifacts with incredible mystical and spiritual powers, blurring the lines between the physical world of archaeology and the metaphysical.  Aliens are cultural shorthand for “there is nothing mystical, just higher intelligences”—the last refuge of Internet atheists clawing desperately to disprove the Existence of God.  There’s no place for that in an Indiana Jones film, where the dude literally drinks from the Cup of Christ.

The Dial of Destiny falls somewhere between the spiritual mysticism of the old films and the hokey sci-fi of the fourth.  The titular artifact in question is allegedly a time machine, created in ancient Seneca by the legendary Greek inventor Archimedes.  A former Nazi scientist (not teaching at the University of Alabama, which cracked me up) wants the Dial so he can go back and correct Hitler’s mistakes.  Dr. Jones wants it to keep that from happening, and possibly to warn his deceased son against enlisting in the military.  Helena Shaw (Waller-Bridges), Indy’s goddaughter, wants it so she can sell it.

The film opens with a de-aged Harrison Ford in Nazi hands, and it has all the feel of a classic Indiana Jones opening.  Against ridiculous odds, Indy manages to escape, then stows away aboard the train carrying a legendary artifact that the Nazis believe can reverse their increasingly desperate situation in the Second World War.  Indy realizes the artifacts are forgeries, but part of the Dial (it’s split into two halves) is there—and real.  It’s a thrilling opening sequence, and introduces Helena Shaw’s father, Dr. Basil Shaw, and the Nazi scientist, Jürgen Voller.

The film then jumps to 1969 amid the Moon landing, with Indiana Jones an elderly and retiring professor.  He sleeps in his recliner (man, talk about hitting close to him!), endures a divorce from Marion Ravenwood, and grieves his deceased son.  It seems he has little to look forward to but an unhappy retirement in a crappy apartment, a legend now forgotten by the rest of the world.

During a lecture about the Battle of Seneca, Helena Shaw shows up, then talks to Dr. Jones in a nearby bar.  She’s after the Dial, which we learn drove her father nearly insane.  Indy took the Dial, promising to destroy it, but seeing as this guy couldn’t bring himself to blow the Ark of the Covenant to kingdom come, he obviously did not destroy his half of the Dial.

Naturally, Helena absconds with the Dial while a mix of CIA agents and white nationalist goons working for Voller corner Dr. Jones.  The game is afoot, and for the next couple of hours we go on a typically globetrotting Indy adventure.

Of course, the completed Dial ultimately falls into the hands of the villains, but its alleged time traveling capability is not all that it appears to be.  The result is a final act that sees Indiana Jones living out the very history he teaches.

Much of the criticism I read and heard leading up to seeing the film focused on the “grrrrrrl power!” message, arguing that Helena Shaw is a lecherous (true) and unlikable (also true, to a point) character who clearly is meant to co-opt the aging and feeble Indiana Jones (eh, not quite as true).  She is unlikable, but is meant to be—she’s still a rebellious teenage girl in a grown woman’s gangly body, trying to turn a quick buck without thinking through the implications of her actions.  At one point in the film, an old friend of Indy’s dies, along with the crew of the friend’s ship.  Helena makes light of the situation, and Indiana growls, “My friend just died!”  The problem is not so much that Helena is obnoxious and juvenile; it’s that she doesn’t really grow throughout the film.

The casting of Phoebe Waller-Bridge is questionable.  She’s made her bones in comedy, and while there is always a bit of comic relief in Indiana Jones flicks, they’re not exactly known as raunchy teen comedies.  The Dial of Destiny isn’t, either, but that means Waller-Bridge is very out of place in this film.  I personally like tall, awkward, nerdy women, but Waller-Bridge isn’t exactly leading lady material.  She is gangly and uncoordinated, with a long, pointed nose and a Hapsburg jawline that would make Johnny Bravo jealous.  Again, she can be super cute, and this part is certainly a more “masculine” female role—she doesn’t have to be a bombshell—but she just doesn’t come across well as the swashbuckling international heroine.  It would be a travesty if she did, indeed, become the “new Indiana Jones,” because she simply does not inhabit any of the qualities of that character.  That would likely be true regardless of who portrayed Shaw, but it’s especially so with Waller-Bridge.

What I did find is that Indiana Jones still holds his own, contrary to what many reviewers led me to believe.  Sure, he’s a bit slower and less capable physically, but he routinely is doing things that most octogenarians could only dream of doing.  I also did not find that the film made fun of his impairment too much.  There is one scene in which Indy and Helena are scaling a cave wall, and he has some trouble due to his advanced age and poor joints.  There’s a little joke about it, but it didn’t seem mean-spirited; just realistic.

As far as Indiana Jones films go, The Dial of Destiny is near the bottom.  Of course, that’s like saying Calvin Coolidge is a bad president when compared to, say, Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump—he was actually a really good president, but there’s no way Coolidge can compete with the legacies of Ronaldus and Donaldus Magnus.  I wouldn’t go so far as to call The Dial of Destiny good, but it’s not terrible, either.  It’s overly long and repetitive, yes, but it’s perfectly suitable for wasting three hours on a hot summer Saturday with a cold beverage and some fresh popcorn.  I’d place it slightly above Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and slightly below Temple of Doom.

So, should you see it?  Well, it was certainly cool seeing it in IMAX.  The sound design is quite good, and you could feel those punches when they landed.  But an at-home viewing via a streaming platform or digital rental is fine.

The film has not done well at the box office, becoming quite the flop.  It’s budget was notoriously large, and the film was one of the many to fall victim to The Age of The Virus, which delayed its production and release substantially.  That only added to its bloated budget (and, perhaps, its runtime).  So far, it has failed to recoup its expenses, which is perhaps an indication of its ho-hum reputation with audiences.

That should tell you everything you need to know.  It’s not terrible, but it’s not as good as its massive budget (perhaps as high as $400 million) suggests.  Sometimes, less is more.  That includes Indiana Jones movies.