Nicholas Dye – Staff Writer/Podcaster

A return to written media for Nowhere California seemed inevitable to coincide with the return of the greatest film adventurer ever, Indiana Jones. I initially wanted to drop this review (spoiler free, of course!) the Friday of the film’s release. Keeping in true with our brand, I decided to shut the fuck up and let everybody have a week to watch the movie! So buckle up kids while I take some ibuprofen for stiff muscles and a little whiskey for my arthritis and get ready to tackle my review for Indiana Jones, and the Dial of Destiny.

As we know from the trailer, besides Harrison, Ford’s return to this iconic character we also got a peek at John Rhys-Davies returning as Indy’s faithful friend and digger, Sallah. The new friends and foes are head up by Phobe Waller-Bridge, Toby Jones, Mads Mikkelsen, Antonio Banderas, Ethann Isidore, and Boyd Holbrook. Beyond that, my lips will stay sealed like the Ark of the Covenant! So pull up a Sankara Stone and grab an ice cold drink for your Holy Grail and be prepared to have your Crystal Skull filled with this review. Okay okay, I’ll stop.

I am of the belief that no CGI face ever looks truly like the real deal. That being said, those cats over at Disney and LucasFilm did some of the best work I’ve ever seen to de-age Harrison Ford. The film opens up in familiar territory of World War II Nazi Germany. We are given a bit of backstory as Indiana Jones and his friend, Basil Shaw are in pursuit of stolen artifacts that the Nazis have loaded up on a train as the Reich crumbles around them. In their pursuit, they tangle with Mads Mikkelsen’s character, a brilliant mathematician, who finds a piece of Archimedes dial, an artifact, that hints at the possibility of time travel. From there, the story takes us to 1969, just after the astronauts return from the moon. We see a world that no longer needs an Indiana Jones and barely needs a professor Jones. True to these films, see our heroes as they jump from country to country, city to city in pursuit of clues that will lead them to Archimedes dial. Even in 1969, Indiana Jones is locked in a fierce battle with former Nazis hell-bent on restoring the glory of the third Reich. In essence, this is a race against and for time. Initially, I didn’t like the idea that Indiana Jones was an afterthought to most of these people, but as I’ve had time to really think about it, Indiana Jones didn’t even believe in Indiana Jones anymore. Once the wheels began rolling towards another harrowing adventure, that’s when we see Indy’s confident begin to resurge, and he makes it very well known that he is still the best archaeologist. The world has never known. I know many of our readers and many fans of Indiana Jones will groan at the thought of time travel, and anything being changed, but I urge you to ignore that and go see this film. Although I stand firm that the greatest ending that this series had was when they literally rode off into the sunset at the end of The Last Crusade, this was a very well thought out and well executed final film of this iconic adventurer.