“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” (2023) is the fifth and final (?) installment of the franchise. It starts near the end of World War II with Indy (Harrison Ford) trying to recover stolen antiquities from the Nazis and save his friend and colleague Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) when they retrieve half of the Dial of Archimedes from Nazi physicist Jurgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen). Fast forward to 1969 when Indy is facing a bleak retirement, but the call to adventure beckons once more when his goddaughter Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) steals the Dial and leads a bunch of unhinged, Nazis-in-spirit henchmen to his door. Jurgen has a new identity thanks to US Operation Paperclip, a real-life government program which enlisted Nazis to work for NASA. Jurgen uses his high-level federal connections to continue his quest for the Dial and conquer history. Who will recover the Dial?
The good news is that “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” is better than “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” (2008). Gold can be found sprinkled throughout the story. The last half hour of the 154-minute movie got me to sit up and pay attention then turned so outrageous and dumb in a fun way that I did not mind. Jurgen is a great villain who wants to live the hypothetical question, “if you could go back in time and kill Hitler, would you,” but for all the wrong reasons. Post-2016, Indy’s renown disgust over Nazis feels urgent and relevant, and the film does a subtle job of condemning the US for embracing and elevating Nazis over its now obsolete and forgotten heroes, WWII veterans and anyone who resisted the Nazis. It feels like a political statement explaining how the US got to this point, and the chilling denouement shows that you do not have to speak or be German to be a Nazi. The movie is a little heavy-handed in the way that Jurgen likes to find the nearest black person and gloat. Do not get too excited over a new black character who tries to check him because she is wearing a metaphorical red shirt. Evidently the filmmakers missed the trailers for “The Blackening” (2023).
Casting Ford in a movie is a guarantee that a huge segment of the population is going to watch it. Ford is in this interesting place in his career where he is still doing new work and not resting on his laurels, but there is a huge part of his career devoted to anchoring franchises in nostalgia: “Star Wars: Episode VII-The Force Awakens” (2016), “Blade Runner 2049” (2017) and now “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.” Ford does an amazing job and has a fearless scene where he leans on his aging body to emphasize the point that Indy is in danger of becoming obsolete. I loved how Indy is desperate to get the police’s help instead of taking things into his own hands. Ford is credible as someone who is afraid and outmatched until his reflexes kick in when he realizes that no one will save him.
While I preferred Waller-Bridges voice acting in “Solo: A Star Wars Story” (2018), she does her best with what she is given, but her character felt as if she belonged to an earlier era, the 1920s new adventurer, British woman explorer who wears khakis. She gets a huge swath close to the end of the movie to prove that she can carry on her godfather’s mantle without him and perform all the expected daring stunts.
Mikkelsen mixes arrogance with a dash of panic and anxiousness whenever he sees Indy. It is rare to have a villain who knows his limits and learns from his past mistakes, but it is only conveyed through Mikkelsen’s body language, no prose dumps. Mikkelsen has been raking in the dough by being the best actor playing villains in Hollywood franchises, but I’m curious how he spends the money since he does not give the impression of a man with lavish tastes. Jeremy Iron starred in crap to repair and furnish his castle so what is Mikkelsen doing slumming it or is he having fun? Also I kept waiting for the film to explain Jurgen’s skincare regimen since he aged so much better than Indy.
The entire cast is great with a couple of familiar faces making brief appearances. Most puzzling was the casting of Antonio Banderas, whom viewers may not recognize since his role is so small. He is criminally underutilized. There are a hot five minutes when Ford, Waller-Bridge, Banderas and Mikkelsen get to act without interruptions or a chaotic environment distracting from their performance, and it makes no sense that the filmmakers saw that scene and thought it was sufficient, no more, no less.
The bad news about “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” is that it feels like a lot of bloated chase scenes strung together, which felt derivative, tiresome and dull. This franchise’s problem is that at one point, it was the innovator breaking new ground, but now other movies have taken the mantle and surpassed “Indiana Jones.” During the opening sequence, when CGI is used to depict Indy in his younger days, initially it seems on the same level as the MCU, but once Indy starts moving, I started calling it “The Polar Express” (2004). Indy riding a horse is an iconic image, but in this incarnation, it felt more like a diluted “John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum” (2019). It felt as if everything was done better in another film, including earlier “Indiana Jones” films. A tuk tuk chase scene felt reminiscent of a chase scene in “Jurassic World Dominion” (2022), which borrowed heavily from the Indiana Jones franchise with its formula of having a woman and a child in the adventure. An underwater sequence feels unfortunately timed with recent events. The time fissure felt borrowed from Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead’s “The Endless” (2017).
There is a scene which Indy alludes to when reunited with Helena as an adult. “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” then shows a flashback of that moment. Was it necessary? It felt redundant and like one of the many scenes that could have been cut to make the run time more reasonable.
The script had holes. I despise when a character gets framed for a crime that they did not commit despite multiple witnesses, and “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” trucks in that trope as an excuse for Indy to hit the road again; however, by the end of the film, this loose end never gets tied up. I loved the denouement, but there were occasionally lines that sounded good, but upon reflection, posed more questions than it answered. Jurgen relates to Indy, “The world no longer cares about men like us.” Wait, huh? What does that mean? What do they have in common: caring about history? And the world does care about people like Jurgen thus the fucking Manhattan parade at the top of the movie. The line works for Indy, but not coming out of Jurgen’s mouth. There is another awkward exchange between Helena and Indy when she says, “You’re meant to be here, Indy.” “For who?” Now when you see the scene, it is obvious that the writers were teasing an upcoming cameo, but Indy failing Helena as a child is a dynamic that the two must overcome to redeem her soul, but this line feels callous and as if it could undo all the work that they did to reconcile.
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The final scenes of “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” are pulled punches. I prefer to think of it as Indy dying during the Siege of Syracus in 212 BC and dreaming of a happy ending where he is reunited with Marion (Karen Allen), Helena is on the straight and narrow and everyone he loves can be together. The film probably meant for the end to be literal, not a death illusion, and I hate it because it is as if the entire movie is irrelevant at its emotional core. If the trajectory of the film was to reunite Indy with Helena, I would have preferred a quieter movie with seeing him retire and a more plausible way for the couple to find each other in their grief because I do not buy that Indy nearly dying would make Marion return to take care of him. Also why is Indy no longer a fugitive?!? It is sloppy unless he is dead and living in his version of paradise.
Am I the only one who hopes than Ethann Isidore, who plays Teddy, Helena’s thief kid sidekick, does not become another Ke Huy Quan in the worst ways possible with the American showbiz industry discarding him when he grows up? I cannot watch kid actors in this franchise anymore without thinking about exploitation.
