Indiana Jones and the Dial of Stupidity
*There will be spoilers for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Stupidity.
I went to see Indiana Jones and the Dial of Stupidity at the Nitehawk in Park Slope this weekend. At some point Jones says “it’s not a matter of what you believe, but how hard you believe in it.” This aptly sums up Indiana Jones and the Dial of Stupidity. You have to believe so hard that you will be rewarded eventually to sit through this sham of a movie. The real title is Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, but we are going to refer to it by my title.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Stupidity has a good enough start with some intense action at least.
This quickly gets tired though. Jones is being chased by Nazis on a train. There is nonstop guns shooting and explosions as the Allied Liberation of Europe is occurring. 80 year old Indiana Jones is single-handedly taking down all of the Nazis. We learn that they possess a long lost artifact of great power called Archimedes’ Dial. Jones takes it. Meanwhile Jones’ friend, Basil Shaw, an Oxford professor, is trapped on the train. Jones finds him, and they escape to the top of the train to run away. An astrophysicist, Jürgen Voller, is after the Archimedes’ Dial that Jones has now stolen from him.
Doddering, useless Basil watches Voller beat Jones mercilessly.
Basil has no idea what to do even when there is a gun within his reach. Eventually the train is in a tunnel and Jürgen lifts 80 year old Jones, dragging him along the roof of the tunnel. Jones survives hitting into bricks with nary a scratch on him. Jürgen is about to kill Jones, but a steal beam knocks him by his head off of the train just in time. Jones and pointless Basil jump into a river below before the train careens off a bridge.
The movie then cuts to twenty years later. Jones is now living in NYC during the 60s. Jones is a crotchety, high functioning alcoholic with obnoxious hippy neighbors that blast the Beatles. Everything is drab and tedious. We see Jones working as a professor, dispassionately lecturing a class of likewise disinterested students. The movie seems to mock the audience when one of the students flagrantly yawns right into the camera.
What perfect timing when Helena Shaw, Jones’ goddaughter, unexpectedly arrives on the day of his retirement.
She is the daughter of feeble Basil and we will quickly see is insufferable. Helena convinces Jones to show her the Archimedes’ Dial he escaped from the Nazis with twenty years prior. Now enter some idiotic, trigger happy, Nazi, confederate assassins and a sassy, know-it-all, spy named Mason who is constantly telling them not to shoot everything. They are after Helena. Helena steals the Dial and leaves Jones for dead. He escapes of course because this Nazi dumpster fire is far from over.
Sullah appears out of nowhere to tug on our heartstrings. He and Jones reminisce about the swashbuckling movies Indiana Jones once were. Too bad! Sullah informs Jones that Helena has taken off for Morocco, so Jones pursues her. It seems Helena knew assassins were tracking her, yet apparently thought it was a good idea to host an auction for Archimedes’ Dial in the hall of a snazzy Moroccan hotel called l’Atlantique. When Jones apprehends her about her theft she retorts “that’s capitalism”. I wonder what could happen now? We find out Jürgen wasn’t decapitated when hitting his head into a steel beam at 50 miles per hour. The assassins and the spy were hired by Jürgen, and they proceed to steal the Dial.
Now it’s time for a car chase!
Jones and Helena are chasing after Jürgen and the spies separately. Helena and an Arab boy named Teddy are after the dial because they want to sell it, while Jones wants to put it in a museum. Jones inexplicably winds up in the same car as Helena and Teddy and they are now mostly a bickering team. Nothing of any real significance happens after this until they get to the tomb of Archimedes. You can trust me on this. Oh, Teddy was kidnapped by the Nazis, but that was it. Almost nothing important happens for a good 40 minutes of Indian Jones and the Dial of Stupidity.
Perhaps this went over the heads of newer fans, but OG fans will notice that up to this point there has been little archaeology in a movie about a renowned archaeologist. Finally we get some when Jones and Helena arrive to Archimedes’ tomb. They find a watch on Archimedes wrist. Wow. How strange. Now the Nazis have arrived. Helena gets Teddy back, but the Nazis now have the Dial and Jones as their hostage. Jones tells Helena and Teddy to run away.
We are almost drawing to the end of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Stupidity my dear reader.
Now we finally get to see Archimedes’ Dial in action. Jürgen is going to set the dial to 1944 to assassinate Hitler so the Nazis can win WWII. The plane goes through a hole in the clouds and, boop, they are now in a new timeline. One problem: they have arrived to the time of Archimedes. Jürgen becomes enraged and tries to kill Jones, but fails and dies himself obviously
Jones learns that Helena, who was up to this point not at all interested in Jones, has had a change of heart. She sneaked onto the plane to rescue him. Jones puts on a parachute, and they escape before crashing. Where else do they land but right where Archimedes will be? They start conversing in an ancient Latin language. Jones notices the same watch he found at his tomb on Archimedes’ wrist now. Archimedes found the watch on a dead Nazi’s wrist and swiped it. Golly, the Dial was never a time machine, but a portal to Archimedes himself! The mystery is solved!
Jones has entered his wet dream in real life.
He is mortally injured and wants to spend his remaining moments in this time. Loathsome Helena insists that he doesn’t belong in the time of Archimedes, but in his own time. Jones tells her that he has nothing to live for since his wife is estranged from him and their son died fighting in war. Helena can’t just let Jones die a dignified, happy death however. She tells Jones “I can’t allow that” and punches Jones in the jaw. The screen turns black.
The scene cuts to Jones waking up in pain in his drab Manhattan apartment. He asks Helena “why didn’t you leave me?” Sullah and his estranged wife Marion appear one more time to do their schmaltzy, little nostalgic acts. We never find out if Helena sold the Dial or what’s become of it. Sullah and some kids go get ice cream. It’s a happy ending for everyone, except Indiana Jones I guess? Cue the triumphant Indiana Jones music!
Why couldn’t the movie let Indiana Jones die happy?
Of course the answer is money because if Indiana Jones died there would be no more movies to make of him. Money is what is reanimating the lifeless corpse that was Indiana Jones. It’s painful to say, but Indiana Jones is not Indiana Jones anymore. Mickey Mouse ate and digested him. Mickey’s debris then coalesced into a form that looks and acts like Indiana Jones, but it isn’t him. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Stupidity is the perfect movie to see if you like wasting your money and leaving a movie a little more depressed than before you entered.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Stupidity is tediously paced and pandering.
The movie goes from non-stop, explosive action to insanity-inducing boredom with no preparation whatsoever. The movie threw every piece of nostalgia it could at the audience. No amount of Sullah singing “A British Tar” is going to save this heap o’ junk. The story was impossibly hard to follow and convoluted. It’s difficult to understand why Helena, a Machiavellian sociopath suddenly decided she cared about Indiana Jones. How could the death of Mason the spy be no more profound than stepping on a wad of gum? Also, enough with the Nazis already! People get it. Nazis are bad. How many more times will Nazis be used as a bludgeon by the Indiana Jones franchise?
It has never before been so pleasurable to cheer for the death of beloved characters so that a movie can end sooner. It is a comfort to know that this zombie of Indiana Jones was not directed by Spielberg. But he produced it. Why? Harrison Ford agreed to be in this movie and again we are left screaming WHY?! It was difficult to stop oneself from screaming at the top of their lungs “what have you done?!”
As always, I and the team at Brooklynites thank you for reading. Click back soon!
Read more about Indiana Jones and the Dial of Stupidity:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Jones_and_the_Dial_of_Destiny
Read our previous post about the fascinating, cool history of air conditioning:
https://172-234-236-52.ip.linodeusercontent.com/brooklyns-gift-of-chill/