It was a mistake for Disney to premiere “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” at the Cannes Film Festival. What’s astonishing about this whole debacle is how confident they were about the finished product, so much so that they decided to screen it more than six weeks before its release.
The reviews were terrible, it had a 38% on Rotten Tomatoes, a 51 on Metacritic, and consequently had to contend with a whole month of mediocre buzz before it finally got released on June 30th. This is why a lot of studios skip Cannes. Critics on the Croisette can be very harsh.
Now that more critics have seen ‘Dial of Destiny,’ the reviews are looking less terrible. It’s climbed up to 61% on Rotten Tomatoes. Still not an amazing score, but way better than its initial first reactions. The same thing happened with Disney/Pixar’s “Elemental” which was at 55% during Cannes and is now firmly settled at 75% on RT.
The moral of the story is for Disney to probably skip Cannes next time around. They completely blew it. For weeks now, moviegoers have been under the illusion that ‘Indy 5’ and “Elemental” were being panned. I’m not sure why they both had to screen on the Croisette more than a month before their respective release dates. Maybe Disney truly thought they had two great films and wanted to showcase them to build up early buzz. That clearly backfired.
The result is “Elemental” vastly underperforming at the box-office, and ‘Indy 5’ being predicted for a tepid $60 million to $70 million opening next weekend. I have a hard time seeing it earning $200 million domestically — overseas grosses will have to be very good for it to break even. Remember, the budget for ‘Indy 5’ is a ridiculous $294 million! This ranks it as the 7th most expensive movie ever made.
The good news is that Harrison Ford doesn’t look a day over 81. ‘Indy 5’ uses most of the common Indy tropes for this sequel, it doesn’t reinvent the wheel whatsoever — just a good old yarn. It’s a back-to-the-basics adventure. Which is what Disney probably thought we needed after the last film. Director James Mangold pays homage to B-movies from the 40s and 50s. However, it doesn’t help that Phoebe Waller-Bridge plays Indy’s goddaughter? Ditto the fact that the film hints at a possible female “Indy” in the near future. It practically sets her up for another film.
Shockingly, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of Crystal Skull” had a 77% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes. For all the hate that film got, its reception was much better than the one ‘Dial of Destiny’ has gotten.
‘Crystal Skull’ was supposed to be the sequel that killed off the Indiana Jones franchise. It attempted to pass the torch (and the franchise) to Indy’s son Mutt (Shia LeBeouf), but not many bought that idea. The other factor people failed to consider was that the first three films, all released in the ’80s, had a vintage B-movie matinee vibe that I don’t believe you can necessarily replicate in these self-aware times.
Yes, the ‘Crystal Skull’ screenplay was clunky; it took them almost 20 years to write something concrete and all they could come up with was a half-cooked plot about aliens and nazis. You also had to suspend disbelief and pretend that a 70-year-old Harrison Ford could pull off those stunts.
Yet, still, I prefer ‘Crystal Skull’ to this one. When you strip out the high expectations, ‘Crystal Skull’ wasn’t a bad movie, but it was a disappointing one. Spielberg admitted it. Kennedy admitted it. And yet, I’ll always take Spielberg over Mangold. No contest. It’s just a better-directed movie.
Firing back at critics is nothing new, but calling an entire profession “failed artists” who belong "in the bin" is hilarious, and wildly unhinged.