Non-spoiler review

The original “Indiana Jones” trilogy from 80s is one of the best trilogies in film history, right up there with the original “Star Wars” trilogy and “The Lord of the Rings”. It even ended with the characters riding off into the sunset in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”, how could you ask for more after such a perfect ending?

Well in 2008 we got “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”, a movie that was nowhere the level of quality of the original trilogy, although one not as hated by its respective fandom like with the “Star Wars” prequels (although those movies have been given a reappraisal of sorts), but nonetheless, Indy’s fourth outing felt tacked on and more of a whimper of a finale than what we had before.

Flashforward 15 years later and now we have “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”, a movie that promises to be the final adventure for Indiana Jones and the first Indiana Jones movie that was not directed by Steven Spielberg or written by George Lucas.

So does it serve as a grand finale to one of cinema’s most beloved characters? Let’s dive in.

The film open in 1944 with a digitally de-aged Harrison Ford attempting to retrieve the Lance of Longinus, the spear that pieced Christ’s side, from the hands of the Nazis. Jones and his colleague, Basil Shaw (Toby Jones), acquire the Antikythera, a dial made by Archimedes that is apparently capable of locating fissures in time.

The film then picks up 25 years later in 1969, Jones is an older man who has separated from his wife Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) and pushed into retirement. He is approached by Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), Basil’s daughter and his goddaughter, about the dial. Meanwhile, Jürgen Voller, (Mads Mikkelsen) a former Nazi hired by NASA as part of Operation Paperclip and the man Indy stole the dial from, is seeking to acquire the artifact to alter the outcome of World War II.

Compared to “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”, I found this movie to be entertaining, but not whole great.

I suppose I should back up and start with the good.

Harrison Ford slips back to his role here much better than I think he did as Han Solo in the Star Wars sequel trilogy, that shouldn’t

Comically Serious

surprise anyone since Ford seems to enjoy playing the character of Indy much more than Han. We get an Indiana Jones that actually appears aged and past his prime, I think too often in legacy movies like this it is easy for the filmmakers to have these 70+ year old men fighting like they did in their 30s and 40s, but here, Indy uses his wits and tricks to get out of conflict more than his whip and fists like in past entries. Indy’s arc in this movie is also pretty dark, leaning into the theme of aging in the movie and time moving forward.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge is good in this, but I never really felt like her character and Indy were as close as the script would like us to believe.

Mads Mikkelsen is good as always, I feel like he never phones-in any of his performances. But I can’t help but feel sorry for the guy for constantly being typecast as a villain, or a villain adjacent character, or a character that gets villainized.

There isn’t much to mention about other characters. John Rhys-Davies has little more than a cameo as Sallah, Toby Jones is maybe in two minutes of the movie tops, and Helena’s sidekick Teddy (Ethann Isidore) feels like a lesser version of Short Round. Really, Teddy only amounts to one very obvious Chekov’s Gun in his introduction that any movie savvy viewer will recognize the payoff for.

The dial is interesting on paper, but there are a lot of questions about its operation and even more questions regarding the nature of the thing the dial is suppose to point toward.

The film does have some excellent visuals, especially during the Apollo 11 Ticker Tape parade in New York, but there were some scenes where sequences were obviously utilizing CGI or low light to hide CGI.

Speaking of, the digital de-aging for Harrison Ford looked good…when he wasn’t speaking. The initial reveal looked great and I was blown away, but once he started speaking it was obvious the lips didn’t match up and there was this intense uncanny valley feeling.

John Williams had originally said that this movie would be his last film to score, but now that appears to not be the case. I’m glad for that because his score is still incredible and the best part of the movie. But unfortunately, none of the on-screen action felt thrilling enough to warrant the classic Indiana Jones theme.

Overall, this movie serves as a better finale than the previous entry, but I think it pails in comparison to the originals, and it seems to lack the same spirit or enthusiasm.

“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” gets a 5/10.