Indiana Jones and the Suspension of Disbelief [35/52]
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is a movie packed with CGI, stunt doubles and trick photography. All in service of suspending your disbelief just enough, meeting you halfway and helping you belive that an 80 year old Harrison Ford can still run, jump, punch and adventure. It’s Superman all over again, you’ll believe a man can fly. It's a diligent use of filmmaking technology, one that largely boils down to 'we did it in the computer' yes, but more traditional methods are at play too. This resurrection of Indiana Jones the character, is necessary for the return of Indiana Jones the franchise and it mostly works. If the franchise needed to return and if it was what anyone actually wanted, is a larger question.
Dial actually starts with this uncanny valley sequence highlighting the core reason it was made, they can digitally de-age Harrison Ford, put his wrinkles into the computer and have it come back with a passible version of Ford from the past. It really almost works, like, I can see why they didn't want to make a whole film like this, he looks like a video game character a lot of the time. But it really mostly almost works. They don't touch his voice, which leaves this version of Indy sounding like he smoked a lot of cigarettes, but it fits the character enough that we can move on. The sequence is lots of jumping and running around and on top of a train. Punching and shooting, saving artefacts from being looted by stealing them, that kinda thing.
After that, the digitally babified, pretend mid-40's version of Ford is put aside. The rest of the film is just him looking every one of his years, but there's still a lot of adventuring.
I did mostly managed to keep my disbelief set to suspend, to see the film rather than its 80 year old star. Sometimes, when Ford turned to run somewhere, I was suddenly very aware of the back of his stunt double. When he punched out one of the films countless Nazis, I questioned the damage it would do to his hand. It was mostly possible to play along, to join with the movie in reliving Ford's more spritely days. Every Indy film has a degree of that, filmmaking tricks and people paid to take falls, crack whips. It's just here we're asked to imagine such a big displacement, such an enormous gap between what's possible and what is on screen.
Putting aside my setting aside of my disbelief. I did actually like the movie, it's not an all time smash hit, the most I can say is I'd happily watch it again. That's really in spite of Ford and his army of digital and physical lookalikes. It's a film of call backs, references and returning characters, with everything an Indy film should have, all the bells whistles and endless punchable Nazis. It just hasn't got anything else, generally having little to say and nothing much to add. The wider Franchise sat nicely at 3 films, the fourth was forgettable and this was clearly meant to be 'the ending you always wanted'. But I don't see that, I can't agree. Fans really wanted another few films to have been made in the 80's, for the series not to have languished, for enough material to watch on loop. You can't make the dream indy movie without a Time Machine, so they settled on trying to make it about one.
Mads Mikkelsen being born for the role of Nazi war criminal feels as much insult as complement. But he is fantastic in the film. Cunning, conniving, conspiratorial, ever the perfect evil foil for our heroes. Always one step ahead and somehow on the back-foot, never quite anticipating their moves correctly, but prepared enough to improvise. His performance is sly, scary, he inhabits the role with terrifying presence and unfortunate accuracy. For me, Mikkelsen is the highlight of the film, I love many of his performances and this one truly elevates the material and the work of those around him. He has a little gang of baddies with him, which really fits the existing canon. Again, it doesn't really built on it, just being in line, rather than expanding anything.
Phoebe Waller-Bridge is most of Indy's support, she plays a lost god daughter turned thief/vagabond/explorer type. She does much of the hanging out of airplanes and stunts that we really couldn't buy Indy pulling off. I watched and loved all of Fleabag, the BBC/Amazon comedy drama series she wrote and starred in, so it's nice to see her land on her feet. The character can be a little bit weirdly sociopathic and they keep directly telling you she's very into men, compulsory heterosexuality is annoying. I like what Waller-Bridge does with the character, she's very funny, very real and brings humanity where the script lacks it. She's set up (as Shia LaBeouf was before) for a spin off film about her adventures and I'm sure it will never materialise. LaBeouf is said to have died in the Vietnam war in this film. Which while it served as a genuinely good emotional beat, had big 'Poochie died on the way back to his home planet' vibes. It's like an assurance they won't go there, a promise that while LaBeouf Tarzan swinging from vines happened, it won't happen again.
Ford doesn't quite fit the hat/jacket/whip look anymore, he looks like your dad at a costume party, not an ever adventuring archaeologist. I wish they'd took this moment to give him a slightly different look, keep the hat but change the jacket perhaps. I know why they didn't, I just don't like keeping a character in status, letting him age while his wardrobe stays unchanged.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny succeeds at being the best Indy film 2023 could make and certainly the best one it could imagine. It doesn't move the character forward or really prepare for a recast or replacement, if anything it supposes another big adventure. I don't see how that happens, you can leave the door open as much as you want, prepare for more swashbuckling and artefacts hunting. But again, Ford is 80, he can't deliver on that. Money is the answer I guess, maybe indy 6 will come a decade after Fords death, a full CGI resurrection by digital grave robbers and Disney Execs born decades after the franchise started.
It's weird to think about and it's a shame this couldn't be its own thing. That it's tied up with old lore and older actors. Overall I still liked it, I just wanted to like it more.