INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY (2023): Director James Mangold Not Sure That Disappointing Reviews Will Hold on Latest Film in Popular Franchise

5th Indiana Jones Movie Scores Could Improve Over Time

Filmmaker James Mangold believes that his new sequel, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, could do better with critics as time passes.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny hasn’t even opened yet but is scoring the lowest ratings from critics of all the movies in the Indiana Jones franchise. Director James Mangold thinks that it will take time to officially decide where this new film will eventually stand on the series’ critical timeline. Rotten Tomatoes scores are not the best at this particular point in time, however. The fifth installment in the franchise stands with just a 59% approval score. However, the film hasn’t even opened yet and as the final reviews trickle in, this score could all change. Mangold still was under a lot of pressure to get the latest to live up to the past films since the previous four movies in the Indiana Jones series were well-loved over the past several decades.

While Steven Spielberg was originally designated to helm the new picture which opens next week, Mangold took over and in reading some of the reviews, it doesn’t seem Mangold did such a bad job. He just had a high bar to live up to in making this new picture as good as the others. I will, of course, decide for myself when I review the picture next week if it worked or it didn’t as a successful entry in the franchise.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge and Antonio Banderas co-star in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Harrison Ford has had some good co-stars over the years and these two seem just as good as any of Ford’s co-stars. In the second movie in the series, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Ford’s co-star just won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in Everything Everywhere All at Once. That was the terrific former kid actor Ke Huy Quan, of course. Academy Award winner Sean Connery played with Ford in the much loved Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Another Oscar winner, Cate Blanchett, appeared in the fourth movie, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

The big question mark hanging over Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is what its CinemaScore grade will be. The last movie before this one got a mere “B.” If the new film could pull an “A,” it could prove that audiences will have the final say over which Indy film is really the best. Fans shouldn’t get discouraged by the low Rotten Tomatoes score for the newest chapter in the Indiana Jones franchise. They will have the opportunity to make their own decision through CinemaScore grades (and their box-office dollars) as to how good the fifth entry really is. While Mangold won’t return to make another one of these films (Harrison Ford won’t either), this last hurrah may be the type of movie to please audiences more than critics.

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