To my surprise, I loved Indiana Jones: The Dial of Destiny. It had a lot of good ol’, classic Indiana Jones moments: The crazy chase, the ancient tombs and traps, bugs and snakes. It’s a movie where you need to switch off your brain off and enjoy it. Watching it made me feel like a kid again. It was a perfect send off for one of cinema’s most iconic characters.

Yet, if you had looked online, especially on Youtube movie channels, you would have thought it was terrible.

These days, I do my best to avoid any information about upcoming movies. I’ve long realised that reviews or even the non-spoilery opinion of people tend to colour my perception of movies.

We don’t seem to enjoy movies for the sake of it this days. We always have to tie it with some serious commentary on culture, politics and gender.

Maybe it has to do with the need to create content in a way that pleases the algorithm: saying something that will provoke a big emotional reaction. And creators love to provoke anger and indignation because that’s where you get all those juicy comments that algorithms like.

That said, let’s talk about the most controversial Indy movie: The Temple of Doom.

Naturally, after returning from watching The Dial of Destiny, I rewatched Raiders of the Lost Ark and then, The Temple of Doom.

And yeah, it’s as wildly politically incorrect as I remember it. 😅 All the unflattering depictions of india that you can imagine. That meal at the palace, for one, was especially cringe worthy. As far as I know, Indian cuisine did not include snakes, monkey brains or other manner of creepy crawlies. As many Indians are vegetarians, I can imagine the indignation that must’ve provoked!

Temple of Doom would have been eviscerated in today’s social media and would probably never have been made.

Yet, I loved The Temple of Doom because of its sheer over-the-top hamminess. It was just a fun movie, and while it was not my favourite, it sure gave me a good time when I watched it — even in the politically correct times of 2023.

Creativite works will always be confronting and challenging. Not to say that The Temple of Doom was right in what it did (I think they could at least not insult Indian cuisine!), bu it was an over-the-top, straight out of a pulp novel story and was never meant to be taken seriously.

I think we have forgotten to just park our brains aside and enjoy movies. Everything must be evaluated for political and cultural correctness these days. Every movie is now yelled at for being “too woke” or “anti woke”. Why have we gotten so stodgy?