“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” - The last, last, last crusade.

Dear Indiana Jones Fans,

First, we’d like to thank you for supporting Indiana Jones. Without fans like you, Dr. Jones’ rich world universe of movies, comic books, novels, video games, pinball machines, a television series, a theme park ride, a stunt show, and countless merchandise would not have been possible. Even if you aren’t aware that most of those things existed, we assure you that they are all real things, many of which at least several of you enjoyed.

We would also like to extend our sincerest apologies for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. We didn’t want to make it either, but we signed a deal in the late 1970s with Paramount Pictures to make five Indiana Jones films. Paramount was upset that we titled the third film The Last Crusade and even more upset that it was an exceptionally good way to end a (sort-of) trilogy. They threatened to let Michael Bay write and direct two more if we didn’t do them, so you can see we really didn’t have a choice. Plus, they insisted we cast Shia LaBeouf and center the plot around aliens and CGI because Transformers was far more successful than they expected. Again, we are deeply sorry.

Luckily, Disney bought us in 2012. They were just as upset at Crystal Skull as you, noting that the wait time for their Disneyland theme park ride had dropped from seventy-five minutes to three minutes. Crowds for Epcot’s stunt show dwindled as well, in no small part due to a familiar-looking young man insisting the stunt show needed to incorporate swinging from vines. With Disney in control of our franchise rights, they told us to fulfill our contract to Paramount with a final movie respecting the heart of the franchise and that they did not know what a Mutt Williams was.

To show how much we appreciate your continued support of the franchise (especially the shockingly high $791 million box office), we present to you Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. We swear Dial of Destiny will be the last Indiana Jones movie. I know you’ve heard this before, but this time we really mean it. We even had Harrison Ford go on the record (NBC’s Today - May, 2019) saying “I’m Indiana Jones. When I’m gone, he’s gone.” Nineteen years passed between The Last Crusade and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, another fifteen years to Dial of Destiny, and Ford will be eighty-one years old next month. You do the math.

Dial of Destiny has all the things you love about Indiana Jones adventures. Jones using his bullwhip. Jones punching people. Jones pursuing an ancient relic/MacGuffin. Jones explaining the history and mythology of that ancient relic. Jones fighting Nazis. Jones riding a horse. Jones picking up his hat. Closeups of Jones’ hat. Jones lecturing a bunch of college students in a classroom. Jones driving a vehicle in a chase scene. We even used CGI to de-age Jones for an opening scene where he tries to recover a different ancient relic than the main story ancient relic. Oh...and Sallah (John Rhys-Davies) is there too.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t bring back everything you love. This is the first Indiana Jones movie that isn’t directed by Steven Spielberg. We left many, many (many) messages and, eventually, his assistant called us and said Steven was busy making a movie that Steven says will be THE defining biopic of cinema. Now that we are done making Dial of Destiny, we’re excited to have free time to watch Spielberg’s movie to find out which great person of history Spielberg pointed his camera at.

Dial of Destiny is also the first Indiana Jones movie not written by George Lucas. You’re welcome.

We think you’ll be happy to hear that James Mangold agreed to direct and help write the screenplay for Dial of Destiny. Mangold was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Director for Ford v. Ferrari and Best Adapted Screenplay for Logan, so rest assured Dial of Destiny was in good hands. In addition, Mangold brought with him Jez and John-Henry Butterworth - the writers of Ford v. Ferrari. Finally, we added David Koepp as a fourth writer, who has helped write many good movies (Jurassic Park, Spider-Man, Mission: Impossible), many other less good movies (The Shadow, Snake Eyes, The Mummy (2017)), and that he is very, very sorry he answered George Lucas’ phone calls while writing Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

We’re also excited to tell you about the other main characters. Phoebe Waller-Bridge plays Indy’s goddaughter/archaeologist Helena Shaw, the daughter of Indy’s friend Basil (Toby Jones). Helena wants to find the ancient relic so she can sell it and she needs Indy’s help to get it. Waller-Bridge attacks her role with the same gusto as Karen Allen did in Raiders of the Lost Ark. She will quip and smirk and archaeology so much you’ll think she’s a female incarnation of Indy himself.

Opposite them, Mads Mikkelsen plays an evil Nazi scientist named Jurgen Voller and nobody does evil villain like Mikkelsen. Like every Indiana Jones villain, Voller wants the ancient relic for its mythical power in order to help the Nazis take over the world. Also like every Indiana Jones villain, Voller is very one-dimensional to ensure there is no chance you will ever sympathize with him.

Everything else we did with the movie, we did with you, the fans, in mind. In honor of the previous films, we put in a bunch of easter eggs. We added a fun kid sidekick, Teddy (Ethann Isidore), a Moroccan teenager who helps Helena. He is no Short Round and, now that we think about it, adds nothing to the story or events. But we couldn’t find a way that drinking blood, ripping hearts out, or surviving a fall from an airplane in an inflatable raft made sense in this movie, so we went with the kid. Also, Sallah is there.

We cast Antonio Banderas as Renaldo, a new “old” friend of Indy’s for a fun underwater diving scene. We refrained from using too much CGI and filmed a ton of practical effects in several locations around the world. We put in a gigantic henchman for Indy to fight. We even decided to finally show the full power of the artifact, which we feel was the one flaw in the first three movies. We just know you’ll love it the same way you love it when monster movies show the monster in the first act of the film.

In gratitude to you, we spent $295 million dollars to make certain Dial of Destiny is at least the fourth best Indiana Jones movie. You might even say the third best. We appreciate your forty years of devotion and hope you enjoy watching Dial of Destiny as much as we enjoyed making it. Even if you don’t, we think you’d agree that shouldn’t ask for more than eight dollars back.

Yours truly,

The Indiana Jones Franchise

“Uncharted” - Inter-National Treasure.

Given the number of video games released every year, it’s surprising to see how few of them are adapted into movies. Ever since Super Mario Bros. debuted as the first video game adaptation / cow pie in 1993, it makes sense that studios would be hesitant to make more movies from video games. Well, except Sony Pictures, who have produced approximately eighty-three Resident Evil movies.

Since 2017, there have been a total of ten video game movies (two of them are Resident Evil flicks, in case you were wondering), two of which nobody saw or even heard about (including me). Personally, I still say the latest Tomb Raider is the best adaptation and it’s not particularly close. Now we have Uncharted, a very similar game to Tomb Raider, including a very similar plot. Considering that, plus Tom Holland playing the hero, Nathan Drake, I had high hopes going into the film. And by high hopes I mean not something to avoid stepping in.

(SPOILERS - I won’t spoil anything the trailers didn’t already spoil.)

Nathan Drake hasn’t seen his brother Sam in years. Ever since Sam fled out of the window of their dorm room at a private school after being expelled for breaking into the school’s museum when Nate was twelve, Nate only hears from Sam via postcards from around the world. On that fateful day, we are told that explorer Ferdinand Magellan wasn’t sailing around the world just for prestige, but rather was searching for gold. Because of course he was. Only school children believe the nonsense we are fed about the age of exploration being about exploration and not about plundering other civilizations for gold and slaves.

Back in the present, Nate is tending bar when Victor “Sully” Sullivan (Mark Wahlberg) presents Nate with an opportunity to go find the treasure that Magellan may or may not have found. Nate initially rebuffs Sully but changes his mind after breaking into Sully’s apartment and seeing the same map that Sam and he were going to steal from their school’s museum so many years ago. Now the movie can actually start, by which I mean you can press the ‘start’ button on your controller.

If you have any doubts about this movie being adapted from a video game, the opening scene will erase those doubts immediately. And, that’s only if you haven’t already seen the trailers. We meet Nate coming to consciousness, his foot tangled in the webbing of a string of crates trailing out of the back of a currently flying cargo plane. He proceeds to parkour his way back to the plane via the string of crates while fending off evil henchmen and the scene ends with him being knocked back out of the plane by a car, cutting to twelve-year old Nate. This scene couldn’t be more videogame-esque short of Nate disappearing down a giant green pipe.

Once we get to the treasure hunt part of the film, you will feel like you are watching National Treasure, The Da Vinci Code, and The Goonies all at the same time. There are clues leading to clues leading to more clues. The clues require an in-depth knowledge of history and symbols related to the treasure. There is a heist of an historical artifact from a well-secured building that is a key to finding the treasure. There is silly banter. There is a hot girl, Chloe (Sophia Taylor Ali), who teams up with Nate and Sully. There are a bunch of well financed bad guys who are always just one step behind the good guys. There are even pirate ships in a cave. The only things missing are Josh Brolin and a skeleton with an eye patch.

And you know what? It’s a fun movie, as well it should be. If you thought the Frogger-crate scene was fun, just wait until you get to the part with a helicopter chase scene featuring flying, 500-year old Spanish ships (also spoiled by the trailers). Yeah, I was laughing. It was hilarious and exactly the kind of scene that would be in a video game.

I also enjoyed the performances from the cast, including Antonio Banderas and Tati Gabrielle playing the lead villains. Everyone performed their roles to the best that one-dimensional video game characters can be portrayed, though Holland did stray dangerously close to falling into his Spider-Man character a couple of times (I blame this on the director, Ruben Fleischer, but I’m also okay with it). I thought the interactions between Holland, Wahlberg, and Ali worked really well, enough that I want to see them do another one of these films.

Overall, it’s a movie I liked because it appealed to the gamer in me, while also appealing to the film critic in me, by embracing its roots without tripping all over itself, like most video game movies tend to do. Sure, it was borderline ridiculous at times, but it never came off as trying too hard or trying too little. Like with the video games, I’m in for a sequel.

Rating: Don’t ask for any money back, not even a doubloon.

“Dolittle” - Do you smell something?

It seems almost unfair to write about Dolittle. Why on Earth would a movie with a $175 million budget and starring Robert Downey Jr. be opening in the armpit of the Hollywood calendar known as January? All the kids are back in school, almost everyone blew all of their spending money in December, and those that had any cash left lost it on the Patriots or Saints. Or both. Predicting Dolittle to be a disaster is like shooting fish in a barrel…if the fish were already dead.

The first thing you need to know is your kids will almost certainly like Dolittle. It has talking animals. It has fart jokes. It has a cute little girl playing a princess and a young boy who wants to learn to talk to the animals like Dr. Dolittle. Kids aren’t jaded like we adults and their taste in movies starts and stops at loud noises, bright colors, and bodily noises. My son thought it was hilarious. All of this is why I dreaded giving my initial opinion after the film.

When the agency representative asked what I thought, I pointed at my son and said “ask him.” He gave his opinion - he thought it was very funny - and then she turned back to me. I was trying hard not to jade my son, but he has heard me talking about movies before. After trying to get out of it again (my exact words were “I don’t wanna”), I stood there silently, staring at her, trying to think of something cryptic that he would not understand, but she would. Finally, it hit me. “Well, now I know why this movie opened in January.” A huge smile appeared on her face and she enthusiastically agreed. I know my son has a very good idea of what I really thought, but I think we pulled it off. At least, that is what I am telling myself.

I need to go see a man about a dragon.

(SPOILERS COMING, so do not let your kids read this.)

The movie starts off bad right away - with opening narration. This being the start of a new year, this is a good time to remind you that opening narration is a huge red flag. Typically, narration is the result of a test audience being hopelessly confused by the movie. Also typically, it is an extremely lazy way to convey a bunch of exposition. Exposition that most likely was originally filmed, but the resulting footage sucked. In almost all cases, narration is completely pointless. Dolittle is a perfect example of at least two of these, especially the pointless part (a new writer and director were brought in to redo a bunch of footage, which resulted in twenty-one days of reshoots). We are told that Dolitttle (Robert Downey Jr.) can talk to animals, that his wife died while out on an adventure, and that Dolittle closed off his veterinarian business after her death. The movie then proceeds to show us these things, or describe them to us through character dialogue, when Lady Rose (Carmel Laniado) summons Dolittle to the castle to evaluate the sick Queen Victoria (Jessie Buckley).

After examining the queen, Dolittle determines that the only thing that can cure the queen (she has been poisoned) is the fruit of the mythical Eden Tree. Dr. Mudfly (Michael Sheen) scoffs at this notion, but Dolittle sets off to find the unfindable tree. Not wanting Dolittle to succeed, Lord Badgley sends Mudfly and a battalion of soldiers to chase Dolittle down and kill him. No, this movie does not have a twist and does not care about keeping any surprises for later. This is but one of many likely reasons why test audiences hated this film.

Another reason they hated the film is probably the bizarre voice Downey affected as Dolittle. If you have seen the previews, you heard Downey’s subdued, husky, thick British accent that prevented him from emoting or even raising his voice. At times, it even seemed as if it weren’t his voice at all or that he had to rerecord all of his lines and they were dubbed over the film. We know he can do better because Sherlock Holmes exists, so there is no good explanation for this terrible decision.

Your accent sucks and I'm a dog.

Then, there were the animals and their dialogue. Despite this film taking place in Victorian England, the animals are speaking in a variety of accents, all delivering modern phrases and modern slang. It was incredibly off-putting and completely out of place. For adults that is. This is a movie aimed squarely at kids’ faces and ear holes and few children are going to wonder why nineteenth-century, British animals are calling each other bro.

At least the voice actors didn’t have to show their faces (and there were quite a few well-known names). Voicing talking animals gets them mostly off the hook, allowing them to give absurd performances that kind of fit. Sheen and Antonio Banderas get no such reprieve. All I could think while watching the two of them ham it up was how sad it was to watch really good actors vomit out performances more suited to bad ABC Family movies. At least the budget for this film indicates they were paid well for temporarily setting their souls on fire.

I cannot stress enough that this movie is for kids and kids alone. There are a lot of reasons why this movie will almost assuredly tank at the box office, but the lack of appeal to adults may be the biggest one. Again, test audiences hated this film. The crazy thing is that the film is a toilet-clogger, even after extensive rewrites and reshoots. At one point, Dolittle performs a colon-cleansing on a dragon by pulling a company’s worth of armor and a set of bagpipes out of its ass. Think about that for a minute - they left that part in the movie. At that point, I and the kids were laughing, but for different reasons. They laughed because the dragon farted in Dolittle’s face. I laughed because, yep, January.

Rating: Ask for all of your money back and hope your kids stay innocent for as long as possible.