Before you go see Dial of Destiny, here are six attempts to mimic the Indiana Jones formula… to varying degrees of success!

Romancing the Stone (1984)

From our review: “One of the first of these was 1984’s Romancing the Stone, which seems to ask the question, ‘What if Indiana Jones was retold from a crazy cat lady’s point of view?'”

King Solomon’s Mines (1985)

From our review: “Cue a whole bunch — and I mean a Costco family pack size here — of slapstick and stereotypes and racism. It’s Indiana Jones, yes, if Jones wasn’t really that good at his side gig and had to resort to luck and several sticks of dynamite to help him through the day.”

The Mummy (1999)

From our review: “The filmmakers probably realized that mummies no longer have straight-up horror value in these Texas Chainsaw halcyon days, and wisely mixed up the tale of a guy in linen strips with the spirit of Indiana Jones. ‘Jones Lite,’ if you will, and I will, for it is most pleasing to the palette.”

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2002)

From our review: “Here’s a movie where it knows from the get-go that the whole premise is kind of ridiculous — and decides to have a embrace an over-the-top tone to ride it all the way to the end credits.”

National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007)

From our review: “The puzzles are random, implausible, and silly. The plot skips around between locations for no apparent reason other than to eat up dollars (being as how most American landmarks from the Founding Fathers’ day are on the East Coast of the U.S.A.).”

Jungle Cruise (2021)

From our review: “I’d say that the first half of Jungle Cruise is better simply because it hasn’t unloaded this nonsense on you. Instead, it chooses to focus on a whole lot of great stuntwork and action scenes.”