**Spoilers**
Okay, the movie has been out for ten days or so. I'm going to discuss likes/dislikes, so if you don't want to be spoiled please click out.
Overall I thought it was a pretty good movie. Not perfect, but really, really enjoyable. I can't wait to watch it a few more times at some point. Not sure if this will make it to Disney+ or if this is a Paramount movie. Hopefully it gets released on Blu Ray at some point.
Likes:
- Harrison Ford / Indy is old, and they generally treated his character as such. They didn't have him doing crazy stunts or athletic stuff that a 70+ year old couldn't do.
- I thought the de-aging stuff at the beginning was decent. I know some people hate this stuff, but I thought it was fine.
- I liked that the Antikythera McGuffin they were going for was meaningful. It felt like if the Nazi's got this tech they could rewrite history. I ultimately felt Crystal Skull and ToD suffered a bit because the McGuffin they were after was weird and didn't feel like it was all that meaningful on a global scale.
- They kept the cast pretty small. It seems some action movies (Marvel, etc.) these days get way too sprawling with all the characters. There were basically three main characters, a couple of semi-meaningful sideckicks, and a bunch or throwaway goons.
- I loved the CGI of the Roman siege of Syracuse. Great stuff. Although I did feel the CGI around the NY parade was a lot and felt too busy.
- I didn't mind that Mutt was dead and Indy wrecked his marriage with Marion. I've read some reviews complaining about this, but this story line felt fine to me.
- The Helena Shaw character was pretty good (with a complaint below). I liked that her father was an Indy pal and that she was deeply knowledgeable about the Antikythera relic and archeology in general. She wasn't just a sidekick, but an intellectual partner in the pursuit of the Antikythera.
Dislikes (some of these are nit-picks):
- Captain Zuvio, I mean Renaldo (Antonio Banderas). I assume originally he was going to have a larger role and a bunch of content was cut. This can be super distracting when there is a such a tiny role played by a big name actor. Heck, they even made a 6" figure of him and his character was totally meaningless.
- Helena Shaw character arc. She went from a greedy black market relic dealer battling with Indy to a loyal partner trying to save the world. It felt like this change of heart was a little sudden and not well told, but maybe this was part of the Renaldo part that was cut. I also felt like she didn't ever need to be a greedy black market relic dealer. She could have always been an ally. Either way I felt like she should have been an ally from the start or her change to ally should have been more clear.
- I didn't like that Indy was teaching at some seemingly crappy community college. Maybe that was supposed to tie in to his down on his luck part of life, but I thought they could have kept the old apartment, grumpiness, etc. but had him teaching at a prestigious university. Probably a nit pick on my part, but I always loved the paradox that he was a kick ass academic and a kick ass relic hunter.
- There were lots of chases, and some got too long. Especially the Tuk Tuk chase in Casablanca (or wherever they were). It was a combo of too many locations, too many chases, and somehow the Nazis were always there right behind them, which seemed a little weird at times. Maybe the Casablanca chase just should have been with Helena's ex and not the Nazis too. This kinda combines with another nit pick - I kind of wish that Dr. Voller (Nazi scientist / leader) was more like Belloq where he was just an antiquities hunter and not also a rocket scientist. His knowledge of Archimedes, the Antikythera, etc. was extensive. He managed to know exactly where Indy/Helena were always going implying a super deep knowledge of antiquities and Archimedes even though he was neck deep in helping lead the astronauts to the moon. Also his ties with the CIA at the beginning all got a little over complicated. It could have been simpler if he was just a rich ex-Nazi antiquities hunter - maybe he plundered a bunch of the loot on the train to fund his search for the Antikythera. These are all related nits, but not a super big deal.
Overall it was really, really good. None of my complaints were large enough to really detract from the movie. Sure it could have been a little better, but it was a very enjoyable movie.