My Review of "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny"

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is the latest Indiana Jones adventure that was released in 2023. Yes, you heard that right it came out in 2023. I didn't think we'd get another one when the last one was supposed to be the last. I guess you can never say never.

This movie starts off in the past to explain the McGuffin that he's going to be chasing after for the entire movie. This time it's the dial of destiny aka Antikythera. It's an ancient mechanism created by Archimedes in the second century.

Indiana is joined with his buddy Basil trying to recover relics from Nazis. Unfortunately for them most of the relics they find are fakes except for the Antikythera. Only they and an evil Nazi doctor knows of it's relevance. A battle ensues with Indiana and Basil escaping with their lives and a piece of the Antikythera.

Decades later, probably a number of years after the events of the Crystal Skull. Indiana Jones is now a retired professor. He's going through a lot as his son has passed away and he is now recently separated from Marion. It doesn't seem like he has much to live for anymore.

That is until his long lost god daughter Helena shows up. Helena is Basil's daughter and she remembers Indiana and her father having fights about the Antikythera. Now it's her mission to find this relic but she's got ulterior motives for this ancient relic.

Now Helena, Helena's trusty side-kick Teddy and Indiana will travel around the world to find the Antikythera. All while that evil Nazi doctor chases them down to obtain it for himself.

It's your usual Indiana Jones adventure and we kind of expect that from this type of movie. I love how they used Helena's motivation to get Indiana to join the trip. It's a nod to the Last Crusade as Indiana was trying to fulfill his father's lifelong goal as well. That was a pretty nice touch.

I thought it was really dumb to have Helena's father trying to destroy the relic though. It really threw me out of the movie when Basil was trying to destroy the relic only to give it to Indiana so he could destroy it. None of that made sense at all. There are a number of scenes that logically don't make sense at all. Why would they keep the planes flying so low when there are people throwing things at them?

You have to remind yourself that this is a family friendly movie about a big adventure and try to just go with the action and fun. There is some fun to be had with some of the action sequences too. We have your usual life or death scenes that Indiana gets himself into. They are admittedly much more subdued compared to his previous adventures though. This is acceptable since we know how old Indiana is now.

Special effects are kind of all over the place with this one. There is CGI sprinkled liberally all over this movie. At times it looks spectacular but there are other moments where you feel like you're watching a more realistic version of Who Shot Roger Rabbit. What I mean by that is that it at times looks like a mix between cartoon and real life in the same world.

Still a lot of Indiana Jones fans will find some happiness in this. There are a ton of nods to previous Indiana Jones adventures and fans will see what they're getting at. Not all of it works though but you can tell they studied and tried their best.

Overall, I can't say that this is a great Indiana Jones adventure. I still say the only two worth watching are Raiders and Last Crusade. This was definitely milking the franchise for what it's got and we really didn't need it. I had an okay time but not a good enough time to recommend it. That's why I have to give this movie a 6 out of 10.