Indiana Jones 5

Dispassionate curiosity somewhat tinged with a vague form of anxiety. Indy 5 was once upon a time a set destination for team Lucasberg. Around then I would've been content with the four installments as they were, Indy strolling off screen once and for all with his bride and hat still-in-hand. But said team saddling up again for yet another weird adventure (the final true denouement of sorts, perhaps) rife with retro-pulp formalism and further genre experimentation was simply too much for me to shy away from cynically. Of course I was on board. It's my favorite goddamn film series. But...that was then.

Lucas has long since vanished, an auteur recluse on his own figurative Ahch-To island. Or, I guess he's just too busy with relative retirement plus his art museum. The symbiosis was gone and, in its absence, the constant pre-production delays seemed to have altogether drained Spielberg to completion of whatever remaining spirit he had for the project. Sure, he's still onboard as producer but then he was also a producer on Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom so, ya know, take that with a grain of salt. So now it's another franchise -- the other, cousin to Star Wars -- whose returning sequel will no doubt be polished handsomely and with all the familiar surface mechanics, but with an underlying creative impetus that is questionable to say the least.

James Mangold is a consummate filmmaker: at once modern and traditional...in a 1990s Oscar bait sorta way, therein dramatically poised with his mise en scene direction, aesthetically alert and a sharp editor, and even capable of some crowd-pleasing comedic timing. He's never crass or overwrought; stylish without being obnoxious. He's conventional. His movies are like very fine martinis, the kind you'd order at a yacht club or sports bar for executives: top model but, at the end of the day, a cocktail is just a cocktail. I could think of worse filmmakers to take the helm, I guess. Far worse. I can't imagine the movie being TFA levels of soul-crushing artifice nor just plain terrible in any general sense, yet I also haven't much confidence that it will rise to the pop-art moxie of its predecessors. I suspect it'll be just kinda there, this franchise's equivalent of Solo, maybe a touch more memorable or less.

Put it this way, I would love for nothing more than to have Mangold and Co. surprise me. But a surprise it would be nonetheless.     

Look's as if this 5th installment will close John Williams' career.

No words to describe how fitting I find this. Some might argue that something Star Wars related should constitute his final work but I think he's said all there is to say about that franchise, musically speaking. He'll collaborate once more with Spielberg for the latter's semi-autobiopic The Fabelmans this fall, so I can't think of a better Williamsesque way to go out than with one final summertime Raiders March & company.