No more heroes anymore

A nothing of a film robs Indiana Jones of a decent goodbye, leaving Yaroslav Walker yearning for something more black and white.

Yaroslav Walker

Yaroslav is Vicar of Christ Church, Hampstead.

A silouhette of an adventurer, wearing a fedora hat, stepping gingerly along a rickety bridge.

Indiana Jones searches for the exit in the twilight.

Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures.

In a depressing sign that all creativity and originality is truly fading from the world, we are offered another India Jones film - Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. We are offered a third farewell to a beloved character that robs him of all the wit, charm, charisma, and esteem he ever had. We are served a platter of mildly uninspiring nostalgia-bait cameos, CGI set-pieces, a plot thinner than a communion-wafer, and a finale that seems to be the sleep-deprived fever dream of an over-worked and over-caffeinated script writer meeting a deadline.

It opens in style, and on comfortable ground. We’re back on the Nazis. GREAT! If there’s one thing Indiana Jones can do, it is punch Nazis. A hooded figure is dragged into a soon to be bombed castle that is being looted by retreating Nazi soldiers. The hood is removed, and we see… young Harrison Ford? Not quite, but not bad. As far as de-aging technology goes it could be worse…but then the voice. There is no way to get around the fact that 80-year-old Ford sounds markedly different to 45-year-old Ford, and that just rips you straight out of the film.

The rest of the opening set-piece never recovers, and is so saturated with CGI, that it fails to engage or excite. This goes for much of the film (with the exception of quite a fun car chase through the streets of Tangier) – scenes set leagues under the sea, or miles high in the sky, are so weightless and empty as to be boring. Despite being far greater in scope, they don’t even come close to matching the rollercoaster tension of the mine-car chase in Temple, or heart-stopping wonder of the jump from the horse to the tank in Crusade, or the juvenile joy of the aborted sword-fight/shootout in Raiders. Anyway, Indy stops the Nazi train, seemingly dispatches Mads Mikkelsen’s Nazi scientist, and manages to steal the Antikythera mechanism of Archimedes. Toby Jones adds some light relief as his partner in adventure and is on screen far too little.

Pheobe Waller-Bridge... does snark and sarcasm and raised eyebrows better than most, but that isn’t a good foil for Indy. Indy is the snarky one.

Cut to 25 years later and Indy is a shadow of his former self: an alcoholic, exhausted, uninspired shell of a college professor, counting down the days to death now that he and Marion have separated. It is impossible to say who this film is for. It can’t be for fans of the original, who must be horrified to see the great Indy reduced to this. It can’t be for newcomers who have no way of understanding why this man is significant, and in what way this degeneration is meaningful. So, who is it for? People who hate the character and want him to be taken down a peg or two? This feeling seems to inspire the cameos also – don’t put Sallah and Marion in an Indiana Jones film for a combined screen time of five minutes or less!

Anyway, the plot develops and there isn’t much of it, which is fine; an Indiana Jones film is ultimately a collection of set-piece fetch quests strung together, and that can be glorious…when done right. Indy must team up with his estranged goddaughter (who’s father was Toby Jones) and a bargain-basement Short Round (what I would have done to see Ke Huy Quan properly reprise the role) to find the other half of the Antikythera mechanism before Mads Mikkelsen and his group of Nazis who are hiding-in-plain-sight. Why? Time travel. Obviously.

The performances are fine. Harrison Ford does grouch better than most, and seems to actually be putting effort in. Pheobe Waller-Bridge is…Pheobe Waller-Bridge. Being Pheobe Waller-Bridge is fine…is great! I think Fleabag is one of the best pieces of television we’ve had in the last decade (especially season two). She does snark and sarcasm and raised eyebrows better than most, but that isn’t a good foil for Indy. Indy is the snarky one, Indy is the mocking one. It isn’t Waller-Bridge’s fault, it is what she was given to work with, but it is annoying and upsetting. Mads Mikkelsen is brilliant – the one shining light in the gloom – because he is always brilliant and should be in all films.

To say one genuinely, properly positive thing: the score is lovely. If this is John Williams’ final outing, then what a way to go!

Do we have to break Indy down? Do we have to end with him so broken and pathetic that he would rather give up than fight, and who must be punched by his goddaughter for the film to be resolved?

Clearly, I’m a little upset and am ranting somewhat…but this is important. Indiana Jones is an iconic character, especially to young boys. I don’t want to get into the discourse on men refusing to relinquish control of certain protagonist archetypes, because that isn’t what I argue for. Adventurers, spies, soldier, boxers, etc…all characters that have had excellent female lead portrayals and certainly should have more, if that is what creators and audiences want. But…can we have this not at the expense of a beloved character? Do we have to break Indy down? Do we have to end with him so broken and pathetic that he would rather give up than fight, and who must be punched by his goddaughter for the film to be resolved?

Okay, let's try to take this out of a context that can lead to toxic online discourse. Let’s park the question of whether we’ve gone too far in breaking down good role models for young men (we have, and we ought to stop). Let’s just look at role-models in general. In the Church such role models are called saints. They point us to the practices and prayers that can bring us to holiness, that can bring us closer to God. We remember them for their great and mighty deeds. For some it is victory in great spiritual struggle – like St Anthony punching demons in the face. For others it is achievement in great theological study – like a St Thomas Aquinas or a Richard Hooker. Some are titans of charity – St Francis – who inspire others to set up schools and hospitals – a St John Bosco or the nuns in Call the Midwife.

We don’t slavishly worship their every waking thought or act. We know they were human; they were fallible, they were sinners! Some saints are saintly because they give us an insight into their own complexity and nuance and fallenness – St Augustine’s Confessions is a text that everyone should read every year. But we don’t linger on their faults, and foibles, and indiscretions. That is a recipe for despondency. We know the saints weren’t perfect, but we look to their great and godly example for inspiration.

It was C.S. Lewis who complained, almost a century ago, of the inability of post-war fiction to paint in black and white. I agree, and Dial is an example of this.

I’ve complained in reviews before about the fact that we seem to be unable to have proper villains. This film doesn’t fall into that trap – Mads Mikkelsen’s Jürgen Voller is just evil, a proper Nazi, the most ‘Nazi’ Nazi there is, more Nazi than Hitler! – but it doesn’t want to give us a decent hero. I think it was C. S. Lewis who complained, almost a century ago, of the inability of post-war fiction to paint in black and white. I agree, and Dial is an example of this. Sometimes we need to be reminded of good and bad, holiness and evil, and that we ought to turn to one and away from the other.

Dial of Destiny is a bit of a nothing film that robs Indy of a decent goodbye – he had a great one riding into the sunset with his father and with Sallah, and an okay one when he married Marion – but it is significant in continuing the trend we see of robbing heroes of their heroism, as other films rob villains of their villainy. It would be nice to see a return to great adventure epics showing us a bit of black-and-white. It is good for soul – it gives us something to aspire to, and something to flee from…it gives us an example to follow.

2/5 stars – just watch the original trilogy.

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11 December 2024

1 min read

All this can be yours: the momentum that drives mafia states

Once abhorred opinions gain traction among the distracted nursing grievances.

Simon Burton-Jones

Simon is Bishop of Tonbridge in the Diocese of Rochester. He writes regularly round social, cultural and political issues.

Preisdent Putin stands behind a lectern with a gold door and Russian flag behind him.

What is Putin thinking?

Is there a new Cold War today? This assumption, spurred by the war in Ukraine, is challenged by Anne Applebaum in Autocracy, Inc. (Penguin Random House, 2024). Instead, she argues, there is a growing group of autocratic nations where ruling elites exercise staggering levels of corruption, accumulating wealth, eviscerating the common good and suppressing any meaningful dissent. There is rule by law rather than rule of law, where the courts become the means by which brutal, cynical state power is employed to destroy and imprison opponents.

The Cold War was underpinned by ideology, but autocratic states today support one another through logistics, resources and propaganda despite big differences in outlook. Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, China, Russia and Zimbabwe, to name a handful of autocratic nations, share little by way of common ideology, except the desire of their dictators to stay in power, both to ensure their wealth and to protect themselves from legal action. The fig leaves of religious beliefs and nationalism are often used in different combinations but fool few.

If there is a common denominator for these autocracies, it is the wish to scrap the post-war settlements – the institutions and laws that have marked global affairs since. The body of existing international law is a particular target, as its dismantling immunises dictators against judgment.

Framing the present global picture in clear, criminal terms like this is helpful. Mafia states exist, and they are growing in influence. But it is too easy for others to place themselves on the side of the angels. These kleptocracies have been enabled by corporate bodies elsewhere. In the UK, London is host to lawyers, accountants, bankers and PR experts who have helped to launder money for corrupt elites. They argue their support is legal, but it is also amoral; such is the professional framework of some of the biggest names in law and finance. London’s property market, like several other global capitals, has been grossly distorted by the laundering of foreign money, to the detriment of working people trying to afford their own homes.

At the end of the Cold War, there was a widespread sense that liberal, democratic values had prevailed and it only remained for this dye to leak into the fabric of remaining nations. Not only is this not true today, if anything the momentum is with autocratic values infecting democracies with their ways. The global technology revolution has assisted this, as once abhorred opinions and positions gain traction in the minds of distracted people with grievances, real or imagined.

There is a special hypocrisy when criminals who have stolen billions and murdered thousands claim to speak for God.

The late Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, said the key question for the new century was: who speaks for God? If the suggestion was that this is a question different religious traditions need to answer in ways that support our common humanity, we now have no shortage of dictators who say they speak for God. Their claims that other regions of the world are godless and degenerate are made time and again. Like Goebbels, they know that the endless repetition eventually wears people down until phrases become believable. No-one who cares about God’s character would claim their society reflects his character well; there is injustice, hatred and violence everywhere. But there is a special hypocrisy when criminals who have stolen billions and murdered thousands claim to speak for God.

When Jesus faced his life-defining temptation in the wilderness, the devil showed him the kingdoms of the world and promised they would be his if he ‘turned’. He also tempted Jesus to turn stones into bread. Power and wealth, the very trappings coveted by the world’s dictators. And his final temptation: to throw himself from the roof of the Temple, only to be saved by the angels. To surround himself with a loyal cadre of officers sure to protect his interests at all times.

Instead of the highway to autocracy, Jesus took the uneven and winding path of service to others. One of self-denial, deprived of the material wealth made available by his elevated position. This is the human standard we have been set and it compels self-reflection, not boasting and threats.