Opinion: Indiana Jones 5 and The Marvels were ACtually…Good?
I have something to admit. I really liked two movies that the critics and most of the public took one look at and said, “meh”: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and The Marvels. While the collective opinion of Dial of Destiny was “the sequel nobody asked for,” I thought the set pieces were exciting, the concept that was set up delivered in the climax, and the ending appropriately sentimental and satisfying. While the collective opinion of The Marvels was “the Marvel franchise has no more juice in it,” I thought the chemistry between the three leads was excellent, the action scenes were inventive, and there were so many genuinely funny moments (“Oh, he’s bilingual.” If you’ve seen The Marvels, you know. LOL.)
But I feel like I need to defend myself because the online discourse was mostly mixed to negative indifference - not “This is the worst ever,” but more, “This franchise has run its course, so why bother?” It is as if there is a lingering boredom with those films, and the box office results of both films were very low compared to previous entries in the series (especially factoring in the budget of these newest entries). I feel like I am an outlier pushing against the crowd and I have to explain why.
But at the same time, there should be nothing wrong with liking both movies. While both aren’t masterpieces, in my opinion, they’re still clearly a lot better than most of what I’ve been hearing online. In today’s day and age, it is very easy to quickly click on Rotten Tomatoes, look at the score, and say, “Well, that’s enough for me to decide,” and not even read any reviews or user comments. And yes, sometimes I have been guilty of looking at the website myself to see a movie’s score.
But with Indiana Jones, the discourse online, before the movie even came out, was mixed to negative, to the point that James Mangold, the new director, felt like he had to come out and chastise the critics for bashing a movie they haven’t even watched yet. I purposely avoided the critics and saw Indiana Jones on opening day so I wouldn’t let the critic’s views cloud my opinion of the movie - and I’m very glad I did! I turned to my friend and we both agreed it was so much better than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. (But the real question is, do I think it is better than Temple of Doom?...Well… 😉)
With The Marvels, I couldn’t see it on opening day, and when I accidentally found out the Rotten Tomatoes score (a headline while I was randomly scrolling), I was mad because I wanted to form my own opinions…or was I mad that yet another Marvel film got a low score? Was I more upset that a franchise that used to do so well produced yet another film that was poorly received? Do I have a problem with seeing negative reviews of movies I’ve already decided to see? Maybe all of those are true. But I still say I genuinely enjoyed The Marvels, and I was sad that so few people saw it in the theaters.
To be fair, the Rotten Tomatoes audience scores on both Dial of Destiny and The Marvels were higher than the critical reviews. I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels sad and defensive when a sequel that no one is passionate about comes out and feel like I’m one of the few who thought, “This is a good movie! Why does no one care about it?” What about you? Of the many franchise sequels out lately, I would love to hear you defend a movie the public disliked or was just indifferent about when it came out. What’s a movie you like that seemingly everyone else just goes “blah” and doesn’t give a second thought?
