Nostalgic, yes, but minus the adventure part
Tribune News Service
It’s been 15 years since we last encountered Indiana Jones, the whip-cracking archaeologist made iconic by star Harrison Ford, director Steven Spielberg, and George Lucas, who conceived of the story while seeking to update the classic adventure serial.
Audiences fell for the brainy, blunt and brave Indy in his globe-trotting adventures in the original trilogy, which started with “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark” in 1981. Even the fourth installment, arriving in 2008, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” was profitable and warmly received despite its goofy story.
It’s no surprise that in a filmmaking landscape where legacy sequels, or “legasequels,” roam the box office, the powers that be would take ol’ Indy out for another spin. Ford had returned to both “Star Wars” and “Blade Runner” to positive notices, so it made sense to get the band back together for one more gig, to see if there’s any juice left to squeeze. Enter “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” in which James Mangold takes the reins from Spielberg.
Mangold also cowrote the script with Jez and John-Henry Butterworth and David Koepp, and, true to the spirit of the legasequel, it’s about time travel — the story reflecting the nostalgic desire of both filmmakers and audiences to utilize movies as vehicles to revisit the emotions we felt when we were young.
Lucas and Spielberg used “Indiana Jones” to recreate the feeling of their favorite childhood serials, and Mangold is tasked with delivering a film that brings us back to that feeling of falling in love with “Raiders of the Lost Ark” back in the ‘80s. He approaches the task so literally that he seems to have overlooked the goal of simply making a great adventure movie.
“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” hits the nostalgia button from minute one, with an almost creepy, fetishistic reanimation of Indy’s appeal. These reminders of what was are like constant jabs in the ribs, as if the filmmakers are saying, “Remember this? You like this.”
It’s cameos from beloved characters, reminders of Indy’s well-known idiosyncrasies (he hates snakes and enjoys punching Nazis), and do-overs of famous bits from the previous films. They try so hard to recapture the original charm, but haven’t actually thought about what made it charming in the first place, and the result is a sloggy, dull sequel that’s more “Bogus Journey” than “Excellent Adventure.”