Last weekend, I went to see the new Indiana Jones movie, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. I was a bit taken aback by the expense of going to the movie theatre these days, but as a former archaeologist (and still one at heart) and a movie lover, there was no question of not seeing it on the big screen during opening weekend.
I made sure to temper my expectations. I am a huge Indiana Jones fan, and I remember how disappointed I was after seeing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. (I’ve only seen it that one time, and as far as I’m concerned it doesn’t exist!)
As the movie got underway, I had a sinking feeling that this fifth incarnation of the franchise would also be a big disappointment. The first thirty minutes or so lacked the humour, charm, and cast of characters of an Indiana Jones movie. Even Jones himself was barely recognizable – a grumpy old has-been. Both the opening sequence and the beginning of the story proper were dark and gritty and full of fast, violent action with no thought or plot to ground it. It felt more like a James Bond movie or any anonymous modern action flick.
But then all of a sudden, it found its stride. Indy was off once again to exotic lands with his fedora, his whip, his leather jacket, and his particular brand of arrogance. Still being chased by Nazis, even in 1969, he teams up with his goddaughter Helena, played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. Sharp, funny, and arrogant in her own right, her character is well scripted and brilliantly cast. Her young sidekick, Teddy, is also a welcome addition.
The Antikythera mechanism: The movie’s real celebrity
As a former Roman archaeologist, I was delighted to find that the central artifact of this film was the Antikythera mechanism. It’s Greek, of course, not Roman. But it is a celebrity in the world of Classical archaeology, even if it is not much known outside that sphere.
Despite the title of the film, I don’t recall the term “dial of destiny” being used at any point over the course of its two and a half hours. I was pleased they decided to call the artifact by the name according to which it is known.
Well, almost. They call it “the Antikythera,” which is actually the name of the Greek island near which the mechanism was discovered in an ancient shipwreck. But never mind. I guess that’s close enough. It’s better than “the dial of destiny” at any rate.
The Antikythera mechanism fits well within the Indiana Jones corpus. Of the previous films, the two best, in my opinion, are Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. They both centre on legendary artifacts known only from stories passed down to us. They are objects surrounded by an aura of mystery. To search for them would be an adventure in itself – Nazis or no Nazis.
The Antikythera mechanism is in some sense the reverse image. It is a known artifact surrounded by mystery and a sense of awe. A model of the solar system which functioned as an astronomical calendar, even as we get to know it better through advanced investigative technologies, it continues to be an object of wonder and curiosity. Its sophistication in engineering is so far beyond what we imagine ancient people to have been capable of that it can be hard to fathom how it exists at all.
It is not such a great leap, I think, when creating an archaeological fantasy such as an Indiana Jones movie to let the imagination wander and say: Perhaps it was something more!
An Indiana Jones movie for the modern age
It must be difficult to create a new Indiana Jones movie in this day and age. Raiders of the Lost Ark came out the year I was born, and I am now middle-aged. The difficulty is not just the aging actors. In fact, I thought that was handled fairly well. The greater difficulty is the advancing technologies, styles, and sensibilities within the film industry.
Movies are filmed differently now than they were in the 1980s, and a lot of that style change has to do with the capabilities of modern cameras. There is also, more obviously, the ever advancing ability for computer generation to create worlds and alter images.
On top of all that, the original Indiana Jones movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, was not created with the intention of being a first-class film. It was a fun project, a collaboration between two master filmmakers and storytellers channeling their boyish sense of fun and adventure.
The challenge for any new Indiana Jones movie would be to maintain the tone of the original – made for a different time and with different technologies – while fitting it to today’s sensibilities and expectations. In other words, it has to straddle both the past and the present.
And I feel they’ve done a good job – as good a job as anyone can expect.
Is it a good movie? Well, it depends on your definition of a good movie. It was entertaining. It was well acted and mostly well scripted. It made references to the previous films without being too obvious or tedious.
It’s a good Indiana Jones movie. And that’s what I was hoping for.
But most of all, I really, really enjoyed it. I thought it was two and a half hours and seventeen dollars and fifty cents well spent.
It’s not perfect. I would have liked to see that first 30 minutes or so redrafted and possibly shortened. I could do with a little less of CGI young Harrison Ford. I could also do with less of the super-up-close violent action. I know it’s the way things are done these days, but it makes the action more intense and harder to follow. But I guess there is no setting back the film industry clock. And the archaeologist in me would like to tweak a few details – even while they don’t particularly bother me greatly and certainly don’t ruin the movie. I’m just a little pedantic, that’s all.
But as a die-hard Indiana Jones fan and a lover of all things history and archaeology, I am happy to accept this new film into the Indiana Jones canon.