The Couch Critic
The Couch Critic is your laid-back guide to movies and TV shows that deserve your attention—or maybe don’t. Nathan dives deep into storytelling, character development, and cinematic style with a sharp eye and a wry sense of humor. Whether it’s a blockbuster hit, a hidden gem, or a cult classic, Nathan’s relatable approach ensures every episode feels like a cozy chat with a friend who just happens to love film. Perfect for casual watchers and cinephiles alike, The Couch Critic brings thoughtful critique without the fluff. Grab your favorite snack, settle in, and let Nathan guide you through the world of screen entertainment.
The Couch Critic
Indiana Jones Uncovered: A Natey & Katy Adventure
Crack your whip and dust off your fedora! Embark on a wild adventure, Natey & Katy style, through the thrilling landscapes of the Indiana Jones series. Get ready for a rollercoaster ride as they rank the movies in the series and offer an in-depth explanation behind their rankings. Prepare for surprises as they break down what they admire about each film, from the action-packed antics of The Last Crusade, to the downright bizarre twists of The Temple of Doom. They'll also shine a spotlight on the latest addition, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, and dissect its eclectic cast and their performances.
Ever wondered whether Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny lived up to the hype? Tune in as they dig into its hits and misses. They'll unravel the intriguing plot point of time travel, appraise Harrison Ford's dynamic performance, and revisit the nostalgic callbacks to Raiders of the Lost Ark. But that's not all! They're also going to pull apart the slow ending and the noticeable absence of callbacks from previous movies. Whether you're an ardent fan or a casual viewer, this episode promises to be an exciting exploration of one of cinema's most iconic franchises. Pull up a chair, grab your popcorn, and enjoy the ride!
One's a movie buff, one watches movies, just enough Together. Fun will be had by all. This is Nadie and Katie at the Movies.
Speaker 2:Hello everyone and welcome to a brand new episode of Nadie and Katie at the Movies. I'm your host, nathan aka Nadie, of course, and joining me, as always, on this journey of movies is my good, good, good, good, good, good friend, katie. Hi, katie, how are you?
Speaker 3:I am doing swell. I'm a little bit tired because it's late at night, but you know what. We had to record that way, because it took me two sessions to see our homework today.
Speaker 2:That's right. Our homework is, let's just get right to it. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. This is the fifth installment in the Indiana Jones series. If you're following us on our social media platforms which you should be you would have seen that I met a list of my best to not so best Indiana Jones movies. There are some people who have been following us that kind of disagreed. So before we get into this movie, i thought I'd give a reasoning behind why I gave my ranking like I did.
Speaker 2:My favorite is what a lot of people thought was the original ending to Indiana Jones back in the day, and that is Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, with Sean Connery playing Indiana Jones' father, henry Jones Sr. And I just really enjoyed it because it had a nice balance of action, drama, comedy. It was just a good mixed bag of all the things that I think an Indiana Jones movie is, and my least favorite and after I watched this recent one, it is still my least favorite That is this is where a lot of people didn't agree with me The Temple of Doom, indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The reason I didn't like that one is multiple reasons. Number one is the weirdness of that movie. It was just too much for me. It was too over the top. Another thing that I really did not like is I did not like the female love interest. I thought the actress playing her just overdid it. I guess it's because they couldn't get Karen Allen to come back, who played Marion, and so they made it a prequel before the Raiders of the Lost Ark. So yeah, that's why The Temple of Doom is at the end of my list, because I just didn't like it.
Speaker 2:But in between you may be wondering Raiders of the Lost Ark, which a lot of people think is the best, but I just I think Raiders of the Lost Ark had a lot of action in it and it had subtle humor, but it didn't have like what the last crusade did. Then after that this is where a lot of people disagree I have Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Now, the reason I have that there is because I actually like Shia LaBeouf. Despite the swinging through the trees with the monkeys seen, i thought he did a good job in that movie And if you don't take the last crusade as the ending of Indiana Jones, i think they ended Indiana Jones well in the kingdom of the crystal skull. I'm about to spoil it. At the end of the movie he gets married to Marian and that's the end of the movie. So to me, if that was the end, that was a good way to send Indiana Jones off Before we get into the movie.
Speaker 2:We got to go over the synapsis Archaeologist Indiana Jones racing against time to retrieve a legendary artifact that can change the course of history. This movie stars, of course, harrison Ford as Indiana Jones. Harrison Ford has been in a plethora of movies, including Star Wars and Blade Runner. It also has spoiler alert, even though she's listed on the cast list. Karen Allen returns as Marian. Karen Allen has been in movies such as Scrooge and, of course, raiders of the Lost Ark and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It also stars Phoebe Waller Bridge as Helena Shaw. She was in Solo and Fleabag. It also stars Boyd Halbrook as Clubber He was in The Predator and Logan Mads Milcherson is in this movie as well. He plays Jurgen Vowler. He was in Rogue One and Doctor Strange. This movie also has John Ray's Davies, a welcomed cameo of Sala, a character in previous Indiana Jones movies, and he was also Gimli in Lord of the Rings. Antonio Banderas is in this movie as Ronaldo. He has been in movies such as Mask of Zorro and Spy Kids. So, katie, that's a very long list of people.
Speaker 2:What did you think of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny?
Speaker 3:I loved it. I didn't get on my phone at all, sorry. I did at the end get on my phone because I wanted to see if Marian was listed in the cast, because then I wanted to know if she was going to show up. I thought it was very entertaining. Lacked in the humor department. I didn't need it to make me laugh necessarily, but I do recall that being something from Indiana Jones movies. I don't know that there was jokes falling flat. There were a few jokes, but I don't think they were really trying, so it didn't bother me that they weren't trying to be funny. But the action scenes were great. And if I could say one big positive for Harrison Ford, i thought he was absolutely incredible. At no point are you thinking, wow, he shouldn't have filmed this. He's like way out of it. I mean, he is still acting. He's got a show shrinking on Apple TV. You can tell that he's still in the game And I think that his performance was same as the other movies. What made the movie itself was his performance.
Speaker 2:I did go see this movie with my dad And so he actually thoroughly enjoyed the movie. He liked the historical aspects. He's always liked that about Indiana Jones. Obviously that's a big part of Indiana Jones lore is the history and the historical aspects which will dive into how much history they actually dived into this movie.
Speaker 3:The first 45 minutes was actually young Harrison Ford. It was a CGI version. I kind of laughed because I've been watching the show shrinking with Harrison Ford, so I know what his current voice sounds like, that voice of an. 80-something-year-old. So it's kind of funny to hear that voice paired with a young looking Harrison Ford. But what did you think of all that sequence? I personally loved it. It was so nostalgic in terms of like this was the original Indiana Jones kind of feel.
Speaker 2:I enjoyed it. I think a lot of people that's like one of the highlights of the movie, even though before the movie came out a lot of people were kind of dragging the movie down because of the CGI And how people were like, oh, you could totally tell it's not really Harrison Ford. I'm like of course he's like 80-something-years-old, but I will say, coming from a couple episodes ago, talking about the Flash, i thought the CGI for young Harrison Ford was a million times better than what they did in The Flash. I think the only downside is what you just said the voice not matching the, the youngness of that Indiana Jones.
Speaker 3:It never took me on a movie and I think that's the biggest thing for me is it was whether it was perfect, flawless or not. I never got personally distracted by any of it, thinking that's completely ridiculous. I can tell it's an animation, and so that, to me, is a testament.
Speaker 2:I think one of my biggest likes is I thought the plot was interesting. I thought the whole going back in time, him actually being able to live history briefly, i thought that was a cool plot point, especially since, you know, king of the Crystal Skull kind of pushed the envelope with the whole aliens thing. This movie pushed the envelope even a little bit further, but it wasn't stupid.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I didn't feel like I wasn't thinking, oh great, another multiverse, another timeline. It didn't feel that way, I agree.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I think they did a really good job at cleaning up the mess. Plot wise, when it came to King of the Crystal Skull, i also thought the action was a lot of fun. Like you stated earlier, harrison Ford still has it as Indiana Jones. He was able to hold his own in the chase scenes, riding a horse, doing all this gunfighting, whipping the whip, like he did back in the day, and so I think they did a really good job with a lot of the fun action that made Indiana Jones so interesting back in the day.
Speaker 2:And I also really liked even though I'm going to explain a little bit later, even though I kind of already explained it before how I think I like King of the Crystal Skull's definitive ending better than what they did here. But I still liked the callback to Raiders of the Lost Ark with Marion at the end, where you know where does it hurt And they point to different areas and he kisses her head and her forehead and her neck and kind of like what she did to him for Raiders of the Lost Ark. So I thought that was a cute ending, but it didn't really satisfy me as much, as I think King of the Crystal Skull gave us what could have been a definitive happy ending for Indiana Jones, and so those are mostly all of my likes for this movie. So, katie, what would you say would be like some dislikes, because I think we both talk about what we like.
Speaker 3:Oh, it's a dislike.
Speaker 2:What is something that you're like? hmm, they could have done this differently, or something.
Speaker 3:Well, you know I'm gonna have to Oreo this, so I'll say some of my last positive later. But I guess if I had to give a negative it would be probably. Some of the ending felt slow. It was kind of cool that they called back, but it felt like action, action, action, fun action. And then this was like really slow, like back to old fart Indy and the old fart Mary and just like I don't really want to see that. I just want to end on the action, like I would have been happy if she just left them there in history. And then that was the end of the movie. And I guess my only other negative is weird. It's like a negative and a positive.
Speaker 3:I was hoping that I would be rewarded, having seen all the other Indy movies, and that there'd be all these callbacks and phrases and oh, that's from that and this is from that. But there really wasn't. And at first I was annoyed and then, the more I thought about it, i'm actually glad, because I do think all these movies are heavily relying on callbacks And I actually really appreciated that they were like no, this is a new Indiana Jones, like he's older, he's not going to say all the same things He's not going to think, be the same way and have the same attitude. He's older, but I'm a little conflicted because I kept waiting for him to say mumbo jumbo or have someone yell out Dr Jones, or just all those little lines. He never saw snakes. There was kind of a hint towards snakes when he gets tangled up in eels, but as far as callbacks, there really wasn't a lot that I caught.
Speaker 2:I think a couple of my dislikes and my dad kind of agreed with this. First one is that you know, we said we liked the action but at the same time it felt like there was a lot going on in this movie And so at times it was hard to keep track of everything going on because it just felt really fast, which is funny, because then you said at the end it kind of slows down back to oh yeah, indiana Jones is 80 something. We should probably slow down now. And so this movie was very fast. And I think that's why I was kind of annoyed with the female lead, not because she's a female, just because of the way they decided to portray the character And just very like back and forth, back and forth is she good, is she bad, is she good, is she bad? It kind of got annoying for me. So there was a lot going on Going to my thing I was going to say about Antonio Banderas.
Speaker 2:Antonio Banderas is a great actor, fantastic. They made it seem like he was supposed to be a character from the previous movies, because Indiana Jones even says you know, i have an old friend who is a diving expert And I'm like, and then it's Antonio Banderas And again, not saying I didn't like that he was in this movie. It just was kind of random that they picked Antonio Banderas to be in this movie because he wasn't in it in previous ones And they made it feel like you're supposed to care about this character And he's supposed to be from.
Speaker 3:Indiana Jones And literally I'm like in the theater Googling Antonio Banderas, indiana Jones movies, like I thought the same thing And like, wait, is this? is this a callback that I really didn't pick up on was in and you're right, it's not when I started thinking, was this supposed to be short round?
Speaker 2:And because the actor wasn't able to film, because he had a conflict with this other little movie, he did that he won best act a supporting actor for, and so he wasn't able to film anything. And so I was like, was was he supposed to be the diving expert? and they couldn't get him. So they just shoehorned Antonio Banderas in there because, as I guess, kind of sad I was that Antonio Banderas's character died. Spoiler alert I think it would have been very sad and more, even more impactful if short round had been the character who died Helping Indiana Jones And we would have had that little cameo, we would have had that callback. But that was another dislike. I didn't like that short round wasn't in it because of how iconic that character is. Even though he's in my least favorite Indiana Jones movie, he's still an iconic character And so I was kind of disappointed that he wasn't in it, not even mentioned. You know, yeah, i didn't like that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you're right, he could have at least been mentioned. I think they could have worked with that. Any other major dislikes?
Speaker 2:Well, i kind of already said it before, but I didn't. I didn't like the ending. Another reason I didn't like it is because they kind of foreshadowed something they could have done, but they didn't do So. When they're in the cave looking for the other half of the dial, destiny Helena says to Indiana Jones if you could go back to any point in history, where would you go? And he said I would go back to before my son enlisted in the army and I would tell him that he was going to die right. So I thought, after they did the Archimedes thing and they go back, what I thought would have been perfect that she took him back to before his son enlisted And that could have been a more impactful ending because it still would have given him a happy ending with his entire family. Obviously, they couldn't get Shia LaBeouf to come into this movie, so they could have done like a voiceover, someone who could have sounded like Shia LaBeouf saying hey, pops, and that could have been the ending of the movie.
Speaker 3:I disagree just from the terms of we're trying to do the least amount of interference in the timeline, right? I mean, this comes back to all our Marvel and TC stuff. Okay, here's the thing.
Speaker 2:My dad made a really good point. How is the fact that you have this Nazi plane going into the past shooting up all these Roman soldier people? he's like how do we know? my dad really thought about this and I love him for it. He's like how do we know that one of those Roman soldiers wasn't related to someone in the future and we just erased that person's history because we just killed all these Roman soldiers?
Speaker 3:See, now here's the problem, nathan. all these little Marvel and DC movies have got you confused because you're not supposed to think about it, and I think that's the whole point about Indian jokes. I think they do good job. Yeah, it's a little confusing.
Speaker 2:Well, and that's why they could have ended it with him going back before his son enlisted. Okay, yeah, sure You don't have to think about it. It wouldn't have messed up anything. It just would have given him a definitive, happier ending, because I still felt depressed because his son died. I know it was a cute ending, but their son's still dead and I'm supposed to be like I ain't good at riddance. Anyway.
Speaker 3:I really like this movie And if I could go ahead and rate it we rate out of six stars I would give this movie a six because I think I was the most entertained in this movie than I had been in other ones. Whether it's the best movie from some kind of awards standpoint, probably not, But for me, I was so excited to go see it and I was impressed.
Speaker 2:As I stated before, the last crusade is still my favorite, then Raiders of the Lost Ark, then Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, then Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which a lot of people still will not agree with me on, and still last his Temple of Doom. And the reason I put Dial of Destiny before Crystal Skull is because plot-wise it is a much better movie. That being said, i give Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny a clear five out of six Because plot-wise it was great, even though the ending kind of confused me and I didn't like. Even though it was a cute callback, i didn't like the ending. There it is. So our next homework assignment is the new faith-based thriller Sound of Freedom. I've heard great things about it. It dominated on the July 4th box office, which was not really reported that much for, i believe, obvious reasons.
Speaker 3:A thriller, christian movie. It's not a popular genre.
Speaker 2:Well, and also the topic that the movie covers is kind of like ooh, we can't talk about that, which I'll get more into that when I review it. So, katie, do you have anything you'd like to say for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny?
Speaker 3:I love you guys.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to Nadie and Katie at the Movies. Feel free to leave us a review so people can find the show. Follow us on all our social media platforms and if there's a movie that you want us to watch, feel free to contact us at nadieandkateyatgmailcom. Thanks for listening and have a great day.
