indiana jones & the dial of destiny [2023]

anna purchased the tickets to see this fifth installment of the indiana jones franchise a few weeks ago.  i was not keen on seeing this flick after being burned by the fourth installment indiana jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull [2008].  the fourth entry in the beloved franchise was so awful that i have an instant gag reflex whenever i recall any of its pieces.  

but anna wanted a summer flick to enjoy.  a throwaway adventure to dig in the heat of the summer.  & sure enough today was the day to cocoon in the ambient chilled air of a local cineplex for today was, at least for the moment, the hottest day of the year.  around 108 F/42 C.  again, i wasn't keen on seeing an aged indy in another flabby swashbuckler.  

today was a good day.  anna, nick & i went to the pool where we met our very good friends b. & c.  the pool water was so warm it felt like bath water.  then, nick, anna & i drove to the mall across the street from the cineplex to have dinner & go to Barnes & Noble bookstore.  nick wanted to buy a copy of jack kerouac's novel On the Road.  that made this ol' poet's heart swell with pride & happiness.  i warned nick that kerouac is a gateway drug & soon he might be mainlining The Beats & after The Beats the road to literature is vast, wide & deep.  but i think nick is imagining a cross-country road trip with his friends & is there a better way to learn about being on the road than from one of the OG writers of wanderlust?  

even so, this was the first time in a long while all three of us were together for an evening.  pool time, dinner time, bookstore time, & movie time.  damn!  which might have some hint of influence of my enjoyment of the latest indiana jones movie.  not that this movie has a plot.  the macguffin is a piece of engineering made by archimedes that can pinpoint the longitude & latitude of a tear in spacetime so one can pass thru that tear & travel in time.  there are nazis, of course, who want this time travel device & indy being the scholarly chap that he is thinks the device belongs in a museum.

everyone is quite game in this outing.  many familiar faces, if now 40 years older than the first indy outing, including karen allen as marion & john rhys-davies reprising indy's faithful sidekick, sallah.  phoebe waller-bridges plays indiana's goddaughter, helena shaw, an adventurer in the same vein as good old henry w. jones, jr., who may or may not take up the fedora & the whip in future installments.  we are kind of given that hint when in the last third of the flick helena dresses in duds quite similar to classic adventurer dr. jones.

the director, james mangold, keep the action swift.  we hardly have time to breathe for the globetrotting set-pieces slam against each other leaving the viewer breathless.  if there is a sentiment on display in this movie it would be one of nostalgia.  not a nostalgia of lost things.  but a kind of nostalgia present in the thrill of meeting an old friend after a long absence for when you see indiana put on the fedora, slip on the leather jacket, & take grip of his whip our emotions get hit hard.  john williams' score is still thrilling, rousing up the emotions as the indiana jones we've always loved is onscreen once again.  

for this latest adventure of indiana jones is a reminder, again, of the pulsating thrills of the magic of movies.  i hadn't even touched on the convincing way the FX team de-aged harrison ford.  realistic indeed.  especially so when they de-age indy to his middle-age period.  astounding CGI.   

& it was a perfect cap to what was an extraordinarily hot day but one that was in form of our family being together.  because, in the end, as the beatles remind us, the love you take is equal to the love you make.  

peace