Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of my favorite movies of all time and for the last couple of years I’ve tried to stay cautiously optimistic about the new Indiana Jones movie (known during production as “Indy 5”). I’ll be honest, when I learned that neither George Lucas nor Steven Spielberg was attached, my cautious optimism began to falter. No disrespect to James Mangold. I actually really like a few of his movies, namely 3:10 to Yuma, Logan, and Ford v Ferrari, but Indy has a cultural history that none of Mangold’s films can match. Now that reviews are coming in for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, it seems as though Indy’s new adventure doesn’t live up to the rollicking thrills of its predecessors. For example, Variety called it “a dutifully eager but ultimately rather joyless piece of nostalgic hokum” and according to the BBC, “I’m not sure how many fans want to see Indiana Jones as a broken, helpless old man who cowers in the corner while his patronizing goddaughter takes the lead, but that’s what we’re given, and it’s as bleak as it sounds.” Ouch.
With reviews like that, I’m not sure I want to give Indy another chance, at least not on the big screen, and especially not after the disaster that was Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Honestly, the film’s poster, created by the great Drew Struzan, was the best part of that whole project. Still, Indy as a character is a part of my movie-going history—I saw Raiders more than a dozen times in the theater and even more on video.
LINKS
Making a 3D poster for The Last Crusade
Making of Raiders of the Lost Ark
Shooting Raiders of the Lost Ark (with Steven Spielberg & Douglas Slocombe)
Steven Soderbergh’s black and white Raiders of the Lost Ark
Raiders! (a shot-for-shot remake)
HBO’s Spielberg documentary