Movie Review

By: 이서원

The movie Indiana Jones and the dial of destiny is a sequel to the already existing series of Indiana Jones movies. Starring Harrison Ford as the main character, The movie once again shows an intricate adventure in which The main character : Indiana Jones goes on an adventure to prevent certain people from abusing an ability a certain relic has and after going through a hassle trying to recover the relic, even ending up traveling through time and space, and saving the world.

However, as impressive as the continuation of the series is, the movie itself is seen as to not be praised as it lacks quality as a piece alone and instead indicates that the series must eventually come to an end. More specifically, The main sources of these negative aspects of the movie are from It’s theme, The impact of the series and the production of the movie.

As the first paragraph’s summary has shown, the movie progresses in the same way as any other movie in the sequel. Although the eras in which each movie is based off of has changed, the basic theme surrounding the single relic is nearly identical to the ones already presented and demonstrated multiple times before. This can also be seen as the over-usage of ‘cliche’ and ‘obvious’ scenes which overall degrade the quality of the movie. Moreover, not only the flow of the story but the individuals and groups forming up that story is also confusing and causes a negative impact towards the overall evaluation of the movie. The movie combines historical groups such as the Roman empire and Nazi Germany with the present society spanning over multiple countries. These eras are not hundreds but in fact thousands of years apart and share no common traditions, lifestyle and more. Not only does the constant transference between these countries cause confusion, but also creates a constant feeling that the story is separated and does not flow well together, therefore making the movie harder to understand. Not only this but also characters constantly facing death yet surviving, disappearing to just appear again by a miracle, and escaping the enemies just to meet them is repeated multiple times throughout the movie which, again, is an obvious indicator that the quality of the theme is just not up to standards.

One of the most prominent reviews regarding the movie is in its over-reliance on the existing series as well as the characters who were shown in the past movies of this series. The Indiana Jones series is well known for its action related scenes. Most well known for the ‘rolling boulder’ scene where Indiana Jones runs away from a rock chasing him, the whole series consists of these iconic and well known scenarios. And although the current movie also shows some action scenes, they are heavily reliant on computer graphics, to which some viewers claim to lower the originality of the series. Moreover, because the target audience of the series is aimed at people with mid-high age, who ‘grew up’ with the series, the movie is seen as more of a nostalgic piece rather than a proper movie. Along with this, audiences of younger generations are seen to be less impacted by the existence of the storyline and have a more negative perception of the movie.

The production of the movie is also one of the largest negative factors of the movie. As stated before, the iconic scenes of the movie are now mostly replaced with computer graphics. Although this allows for more intricate and detailed scenes, it degrades the overall realism of the movie. Moreover, even with giant companies behind the production of this movie, it is often said that the quality in which the scenes were filmed are felt to be less genuine and instead production-rushed. Moreover, due to the actor of the main character’s age being significantly high, action scenes in the production were less pressured which also took a toll on the whole production based quality of the movie.

However, there are also a few parts of the movie that do indeed need recognition. The time connection concept of the relic being made in the past and appearing in the present, allowing the person holding it to go back to the past is an impressive idea. Moreover, somewhat accurate historical replication of certain scenarios are also impressive considering the amount of time and effort it takes to recreate such scenes. However, as good as these scenes are, poor execution and presentation has made the movie not only drop in quality but also lose a potentially good sequel in the series.

Averaging 65% of positive reviews, the movie Indiana Jones and the dial of destiny demonstrates the lack of quality in movies due to quality issues, specifically in the theme and physical production of the movie. As such, criticism of the movie is often found revolving around these parts as well. Although the theme , production , and series in its individual forms are up to standards, as shown in the post, the combination of all these along with poor execution and negligence has caused the movie to not only suffer in revenue but also caused significant impact to the image of stories as well.