I’ve been a part of online rage mobs against things I had no interest in or knowledge of. When I was young and stupid, I was young and stupid and I did all the things young and stupid people engaged in. Unlike the current crop of “hate everything” trolls on the Internet, however, I grew up. In not growing up there’s attention and what passes for power in the ability to declare something to be important, cool, awful or any number of things from a place of complete ignorance. Such seems to be the case in the attacks on the movie “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.”
Let me just start off by saying I love the Indiana Jones movies, they’re up there with Star Wars as being THE films of my childhood. Raiders of the Lost Ark and Last Crusade were awesome, Temple of Doom less so and I prefer to pretend Kingdom of the Crystal Skull never happened. The Dial of Destiny ranks up there with the Last Crusade, though you’d never know it from the press it has gotten. Of course, much, if not most of that press started long before anyone ever saw the movie.
There’s something about modern society that we elevate reprobates and cheer for failure. Declare something is going to suck and you can set in motion the fulfillment of the prophecy because there is an army of people out there almost sexually aroused at the prospect.
This knows no politics – left and right engage in it – likely a byproduct of social media and the desire for attention without concern for whether or not the attention is earned from positive or negative means. All that matters is that attention is gotten, followers gained which can be literally monetized or monetized for social influence. It’s really sad.
I don’t know if social media made people monsters or just gave them the opportunity to expose themselves to the world. Whatever the case, everyone from nobodies to famous models can tell teenagers to kill themselves or wish horrible upon strangers for the sin of disagreeing with their politics or publicly expressing a dislike of some musician. Tweet about not understanding the appeal of some random K-Pop group or thinking Beyoncé is wildly overrated and prepare for more public declarations of hatred than most murderers see.
Back to the movie – the announcement of Indiana Jones 5 was greeted with an odd anger in some circles, and the addition of a new female character played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge was greeted as some sort of feminist messaging being rammed into the movie, a typical PC storm. It’s not even close to that. In fact, there’s no PC BS in the movie at all. It’s just a great movie and a perfect addition to the Indiana Jones franchise.
But the haters revel in hate, declaring the movie a failure because they want it to be a failure, insisting it sucks because they want it to suck for reasons known only to their therapists. Unfortunately, many of these people are film critics and able to influence audiences.
Granted, I went in with low expectations because of that buzz, but I wasn’t going to let the prospect of it not being good stop me from seeing one of my movie heroes one last time.
From the start of the film it was a revelation. In scenes set during World War II, a de-aged Harrison Ford is the Indy we all remember. And it looks perfect, much better than any de-aging CGI I’ve ever seen. The later year scenes are both what we hoped they’d be and what we fear they’d be, with an older Henry Jones Jr. facing retirement and other normal issues. And you’ll maybe even shed a tear, or at least get choked up a little from some of the moments.
In Crystal Skull the action was cartoonish and came off like it was all filed on a soundstage in front of a blue screen. The action in Dial rivals anything in Raiders or Crusade.
And the humor is back, the mysticism, and many of the characters. If you ever liked any of the movies and stayed away because you thought this could ruin memories retroactively, you are wrong. This is the movie you wish the last one was, the movie the franchise deserves to end on. Though, if I’m being honest, the de-aging is so good and the scenes set in the 40s were so excellent I found myself hoping they’d make more movies where Harrison Ford just does the voice.
Don’t believe the hype and don’t trust the haters, if you’re a fan of the Indiana Jones movies do yourself a favor and don’t deny yourself the chance to see the whip and Fedora in action one last time on the big screen. After you enjoy that, we can take a look at what went so wrong in society that so much of our culture is seemingly based in schadenfreude about things as innocuous as excellent movies meant to distract from the hum-drum of life for just a few hours. I give it a solid 8.5 out of 10.
Derek Hunter is the host of a free daily podcast (subscribe!) and author of the book, Outrage, INC., which exposes how liberals use fear and hatred to manipulate the masses, and host of the weekly “Week in F*cking Review” podcast where the news is spoken about the way it deserves to be. Follow him on Twitter at @DerekAHunter.
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