It’s been four decades since the first Indiana Jones movie and 15 years since the last film in the franchise. At this point, there’s no denying that Indy is part of America’s cultural DNA, and who’s not excited to see Harrison Ford dust off and don his famous fedora hat once again? (Nazi’s, that’s who.)
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is a lot of cliff-hanging fun and the 80-year-old Ford still holds his own against all manner of bad guys, beasts and … boulders(?). This is allegedly his last time around in the role, and the feeling was similar to 2015’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the actor’s last real turn at his Han Solo character, where you weren’t sure if he was going to make it to the end or not.
In fact, many times I felt this was similar to Ford’s “last” Han Solo appearance. At one point Indy even has a moment talking about all the crazy things he’s seen, a la Solo’s now famous “It’s true – all of it” speech about the Force. (I’m not giving anything away here – just look for it.)
It’s also not a secret that the film starts during World War II and picks up again in the late ‘60s, around the time of the moon landing. I don’t think writer/director James Mangold (Logan) really capitalizes on having Indy in the Sixties, and that’s not really the point of the film – it just seems like a missed opportunity.
As for Indiana Jones in WWII, the computer generated de-aging was not working for me at all. He appears as he might in a modern video game, which is pretty good, all things considered — but still obviously computer generated. We’re not quite there yet.
The story involves a real-fife artifact called the “Antikythera,” also known as the Dial of Destiny. (So, all those theories about it being an old bar of soap Indy uses to take a bath can be discarded.) Jones and his friend Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) discover half of the device during WWII, and Shaw’s daughter, Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), helps Indy to find the other half in the 1960s.
Most of the action here is old-school Indy, which is fine, but a motorized cart chase goes on a little too long. Are the bad-guys here Nazi’s…? (Moan.) What do you expect? Is there an annoying, new successor to Short Round…? (Sigh.) What is his purpose?
Phoebe Waller-Bridge does a great job as sort of a female version of Indy’s archetype, and I hope she picks up the franchise where they leave it off at the end of this movie. Her character could go to some fun and interesting places.
For me, the story ended rather abruptly, like it was missing a major action piece, but at over two and half hours, it was plenty long. Despite some minor problems this is a fun, old-school and serial-style action flick — with Ford as the real treasure.
Of course, you can’t have Indiana Jones without John Williams and the renowned composer is also back, proving once again that you can close your eyes and enjoy the music and it’s still worth the price of admission.
