Up until yesterday, most people would have been supremely confident that Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was at the very least guaranteed to be a significant step up from maligned predecessor Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, at least until the first reviews rolled in following its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival.
Jaws needed to be picked up off the floor when it debuted to not just the first Rotten score in franchise history, but the lowest by a country mile and then some. Even now, Dial of Destiny‘s approval rating is still only sitting at 44 percent, which is something that absolutely could not have been predicted as recently as 24 hours ago.
Ironically given his status as one of Hollywood’s premiere curmudgeons, Harrison Ford has been putting on a brave face while touting director James Mangold’s first stab at the globetrotting archeological epic, but his words got a little spicy when he was reflecting on the ingredients required to make a successful Indy adventure.
“For me, he made a beautiful movie. There’s a little myth and a little magic, and they all belong in the same box. And when it works, it’s fucking magic.”
Unfortunately, “f*cking tragic” would be a more apt way of describing Dial of Destiny based on the initial wave of reactions, although it’s reasonable to expect the film to make a killing when it hits theaters at the end of next month. Let’s hope the next batch of responses are more positive, then, because it would be a crying shame for one of cinema’s most iconic characters to go out in a blaze of ignominy instead of glory.