“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” the latest and allegedly last film in the Indiana Jones franchise, is a wonderful goodbye to not only the character of Indy but an entire era of filmmaking. This film is far from perfect — it takes some really big swings that will not work for everyone — but overall it’s an impressive piece of adventure filmmaking that harks back to the series’ roots and a much more exciting era for intellectual property (IP) filmmaking.
“Raiders of the Lost Ark” and “The Last Crusade” are far and away the best films in this franchise. Inarguably the two best action-adventure films ever made, they stand in a league all their own. What made them instant classics was combining the earnestness of the golden age of Hollywood with the personal passion of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. These two cinematic titans were obviously trying to recapture some of the big-budget pulp romance of Star Wars, but they wanted to avoid making another special effects (SFX) spectacular and just go do a movie the old down-and-dirty low-tech way. The stunts would be real, the effects would be in camera, and the locations would be exotic. To this day you really feel the weight of every punch and can almost taste the sweat from the desert heat on your lips.
Of the other three Indy films, “Dial of Destiny” gets the closest to that classic Hollywood magic, while ironically being the furthest away, both in time and
