Jonah Naplan June 30, 2023
What am I gaining here that we didn’t already have?
That question rang in my head like a bell throughout “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” the fifth Indy adventure that arrives fourteen years after the last, which likewise released nearly two decades after its own predecessor. In any case, “Dial of Destiny” doesn’t bring a whole lot of new to the archaeology table, but it certainly does bring a lot of fun, and, if anything, drives home the point that Indiana Jones must be immortal, otherwise he’d be long, long gone. In this adventure, the delicately-boned Indy faces off against a slew of vicious Nazis, jumps from vehicle to vehicle in a Tangier marketplace, escapes grenades, dynamite and bullets, chases and runs away from adversaries via cars, planes, horses, and dune buggies, gets into fist fights, gets kidnapped, has a variety of sacks placed on his head, finds lost love, his demons, and confronts his legacy, all while managing to keep his signature fedora firmly planted on his head. Director James Mangold refuses to give the man a break.
In the highly divisive “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” Indy’s son, Mutt, asks him dumbfoundedly, “What are you, like 80?” Harrison Ford was only 66 at the time, but now Mutt would be correct. The legendary Indiana Jones is a senior citizen. He’s retired from his job as a teacher, annoyed with noisy teenage neighbors, and probably collects social security. After the death of Mutt in the Vietnam War, he and Marion separated, leaving the man grizzled, devastated, and lonely in his small city apartment. The first time we see the long-in-the-tooth Indy, he’s scantily clad in his boxer briefs, as one is. It’s clear that old age isn’t agreeing with him, and he feels irrelevant in the days of rapidly evolving technology and the Space Race (the film is set in 1969).
An opening flashback features him in his golden years. An unfortunate and creepily de-aged Indy, along with colleague Basil Shaw (Toby Jones), are seen being taken prisoner on a Nazi train in the final days of World War II. After relieving themselves from their restraints, the two try to reclaim some of the authentic historical artifacts from a Nazi general played by Thomas Kretschmann, and a far more important astrophysicist named Jurgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen, with de-aging of his own). They think their target is the Lance of Longinus, but their sights shift when they stumble upon half of the Antikythera, or this film’s “Dial of Destiny,” once belonging to and coveted by Archimedes himself. As Voller puts it, the powerful device doesn’t make you a king or führer—it makes you God.
This prologue is an odd mix of classic Indy adventure beats, and some strangely rendered CGI that works at the expense of credibility. As far as “Dial of Destiny” goes though, it’s one of the film’s most exciting scenes. The quest for the dial continues in this movie’s “present day,” as Indy is whisked away by Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), Basil’s daughter and Indy’s long-lost goddaughter. Helena dredges up memories from Indy’s past, severing his current livelihood and placing him right in the thicket of adventure again. Retrieving the dial from an artifact storage room, the two are attacked by Voller and his tableau of vicious goons, namely Klaber (Boyd Hollbrook), a kooky, slick-haired, right-hand man.
And the chase is on! “Dial of Destiny”’s first major action sequence with the aged Indy takes place during a rapturous parade that places our hero on a buckling stallion deep down in the city’s subways. There are many individual enthralling moments in this sequence, such as when Indy has to run the gamut and jump through the narrow platform openings just in the nick of time, but the scene overall feels confusingly edited, and at a frustrating arms distance away.
In this chase scene and many others, we forget exactly how these methods of transportation were obtained in the first place, but that’s part of the fun. Mangold and his filmmakers clearly know that, only dedicating a few sparse shots to the chase inception, and spending the vast majority of their sweet time on the exciting chase itself.
“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” is a mostly pleasant mix of some excellent action setpieces, and also a few ineffective ones too. The metaphorical chase for the map inevitably takes Indy and Helena to Tangier, a familiar setting, and the scrawny marketplace makes an excellent backdrop for the film’s most white-knuckled scene. Indy, Helena, and the remaining protagonist to be introduced, a young thief named Teddy (Ethann Isidore), skirt around the agora on what I called “dune buggies” in the opening paragraph, although that may be an incorrect interpretation. Either way, it’s a thrilling sequence, anchored by Mangold’s excellent direction, and John Williams’ absolutely ravishing score.
It’s so cool to hear the iconic Indiana Jones theme on the big screen in 2023!
Like the majority of the other Indy adventures, “Dial of Destiny” is gleefully globetrotting, taking us to different countries, secret caverns, and even the ocean. In an admirable underwater sequence that employs marvelous technical work, Indy, Helena, and a buccaneer ally played by Antonio Banderas scour the Aegean Sea, searching for the other half of the Antikythera said to be abandoned by Archimedes thousands of years ago. The climax of this scene is the clumsiest example of how Mangold, working alongside co-screenwriter Jez Butterworth, can often get too distracted by the thrill of the chase, that he sacrifices logic, particularly the hypothetical probability of absurd coincidence.
Voller and his crew are better villains (development and believability-wise) than Cate Blanchett’s conniving Irina Spalko, but they are always right on our heroes’ tails in what seems like minutes, just because the plot needs it. Sometimes it’s a little difficult to suspend that disbelief.
The Indy adventures have never been entirely subject to practicality, grounding the most crucial action sequences just enough that they seem somewhat plausible, at least until the villain comes face to face with the MacGuffin in question. Then Spielberg would show his whimsy side, adding just a touch of fantasy onto the proceedings. It was always deathly subtle.
The greatest critics of “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” including yours truly, complained that the ending was outlandish, and completely out of left field, betraying the feasibility of the other pictures that had become not only thrilling, but respected. “Dial of Destiny” contains another such crazy outing, that is near comparable to that of its predecessor. Some fans will be mad. This one is more queasy. I’ve seen this type of thing done before, but never in this kind of picture.
James Mangold is certainly one of the more underappreciated directors in Hollywood today, and he does fine work here. My favorite pieces of his (“Logan,” “Ford v. Ferrari”) do an excellent job of showcasing his visual mastery, but what I’ve learned from “Dial of Destiny” is that he’s also willing to take some ballsy risks. He risks making Helena’s deceitful character unlikeable, though she ends up growing on you. He risks putting Nazis into the spotlight of cartoonish villainy once again, even though Spielberg saw that as distasteful after making “Schindler’s List.” He risks pulling the occasional jumpscare gunshot, and killing a few sympathetic good guys. He risks throwing an eighty-year-old back into action in the first place.
But as it turns out, Harrison Ford is, and really always has been, a major component of why we go to these movies, and why they’re such delicious entertainment. Even at 80, Ford is able to don the fedora and wield the dreaded whip as if he’s never left. His mean teddy bear demeanor and crinkly smile were trademarks of the intrepid archaeologist long before Ford hit 50, and they’re captured the best in his old age.
“Dial of Destiny,” however, running at an exceptional 154 minutes, could be shorter. I found that Mangold has a tendency to linger a little too long on certain plot beats, accommodating for the absolute maximum fan service it could muster. I would have liked to have seen a much tighter, 2 hour and 10 minute movie (if you could call 130 minutes tight) that focused more on necessity than content overdrive.
Even so, “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” is a fine and accomplished piece of cinema that has respect for its fans, legacy, and hero. It follows the tried-and-true formula of its ancestor entries, but a formula becomes such in the first place because it’s been proven to work. As a picture, it’s a lot of fun. As an Indy adventure, it’s serviceable. But as an innovative action epic, it falters. Indiana Jones is an old dog, and you can’t exactly teach him new tricks.
Now playing in theaters.