Indiana Jones 5 Is Officially The Worst Movie In The Franchise
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny officially has the lowest Tomatometer score of any film in the franchise.
Indiana Jones 5 is set to debut in theaters next month, though fans shouldn’t expect much from the legacy sequel according to early reviews. Film score aggregates such as Rotten Tomatoes have given The Dial of Destiny overwhelmingly negative reviews, resulting in a 49% rotten score on the tomato-meter, the worst of any film in the franchise. Critics who watched the film during its recent premiere at the 76th annual Cannes Film Festival had a number of major complaints, citing an over-reliance on CGI and visual effects, poor writing, and an overall lack of characterization for Harrison Ford‘s famed treasure hunter.
Since the introduction of Indiana Jones back in the early 1980s, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg have worked closely with one another to bring the pulpy film serials of the 1930s and 1940s to life, through a series of daring visuals only made possible by modern technology and intricate attention to detail.
Spielberg is, of course, the filmmaker responsible for bringing so many modern classics to life that he may as well be unilaterally considered the godfather of the modern blockbuster, with such iconic hits as E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial, Jurassic Park, and Jaws. Indiana Jones 5 marks the first feature length outing for the character without the involvement of Lucas or Spielberg, and though writer-director James Mangold is a talented filmmaker, the lack of direction seems to show in droves, according to early reviews.
Mangold is perhaps best known for his work writing and directing the 2017 film Logan, which should prove he knows how to give a beloved character the epic send-off they deserve. Unfortunately, in Indiana Jones 5, the critics say that simply didn’t pan out the way it was intended.
This promises to be especially disheartening to fans as the first three films in the Indiana Jones franchise — 1981’s Raiders of the Lost Ark, 1984’s The Temple of Doom, and 1989’s The Last Crusade — are widely regarded as classics in their time, each touting Rotten Tomatoes scores of more than 76%, with the first film in the franchise maintaining a nearly perfect 93% fresh.
The fourth film, 2008’s Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, is often regarded as a massive disappointment to fans of the franchise, with jokes and memes on the internet still dedicated to its poorly conceived plot, contrived writing, and failure to recapture the magic of the original trilogy. Of course, fans were cautiously optimistic when Indiana Jones 5 was first announced, though many quipped that even in a worst case scenario, the latest addition to the franchise couldn’t possibly be as bad as Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Of course, all film reviews are subjective, and you may find yourself walking out of the theater after viewing Indiana Jones 5 in a nostalgia-fueled stupor, clamoring for more. After all, many critics gave horrible reviews and low ratings to the recent Super Mario Bros. Movie, despite its incredible box office turnover and nearly immaculate audience score on Rotten Tomatoes. This disparity between film critics and audiences seems to only be growing as time goes on, so it may be best to reserve judgement until the film arrives in theaters on June 30th.
