The hero is back! Again. After the sour taste left by ‘Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull’ way back in 2008, it seems like an eternity waiting for them to rectify their mistake. So with Harrison Ford finally returning to his iconic (and greatest) role one last time, can they finally go out on a high? After watching ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’, it’s clear that the film is much more entertaining than the early reports suggested – however, it’s still nowhere near as good as any of the original trilogy chapters and frankly isn’t as good as it should be. These films are so beloved that it’s right that they are held to a higher account, and ‘Dial of Destiny’, whilst having some good moments, isn’t the salvation we fans have patiently waited 15 years for.
Dr. Henry Jones Jr. (Harrison Ford) is back for more action and adventure. This time he’s joined by his Goddaughter Helena Shaw (Fleabag’s Phoebe Waller-Bridge) in a battle to track down an artifact that could change the very course of history. To say more would spoil the adventure, but the quest leads our hero around the world, reconnecting with past allies and facing a deadly Nazi threat once again – this time spearheaded by an old adversary named Dr. Voller (Mads Mikkelsen).
The film starts off in blistering fashion, with an action set-piece that is by far the best sequence of ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’. It features a flashback to a younger Indiana Jones and his colleague Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) on the run from Nazi’s. The breathtaking spectacle and humour-tinged action is classic ‘Indy’ through and through, and echoes all of the right sentiments that this sequel is striving for. The CGI is surprisingly good in this sequence too, barring a few cartoony scenes that I can easily forgive for the greater good of the spectacle. This is a good set-up for the rest of the film, with Shaw’s now grown-up daughter Helena reconnecting with her Godfather, the soon-to-be-retired Dr. Jones, for help in continuing her father’s life-long obsession with the Dial.
At this point it’s worth saying that Harrison Ford is truly fantastic in this film. He is as effortlessly cool and collected as he usually is. He looks amazing and still easily convinces as our beloved hero, even if there’s a few more miles on his clock. He gives Indy a believability that’s so easy to champion and proves why this franchise has endured for so many decades. Ford is brilliant and it’s worth the admission price alone just to see him crack a whip once again.
The problems start after a good initial set-up. Phoebe Waller Bridge’s performance as Helena is fine – it’s nothing too dissimilar to what we’ve seen of her before. But the writing of her character, tonally, is all over the place. There’s no flow of characterisation with Helena at all – she blows hot and cold with wanton abandon and there’s very little for an audience to actually connect with. Narratively this feels odd too, because it feels like you could watch any of her scenes from this film out of sequence and not be affected by it at all. This isn’t Waller-Bridge’s fault really, but she deserved a character that was much more developed and structured.
It was great to see John Rhys-Davies reprise his role as Sallah, but narratively I didn’t like where they placed his character. This was emblematic of the biggest issues I had with ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’. It had so many opportunities to play scenarios out in a much more satisfying way but left them all begging. It did all of the heavy lifting well, but frequently passed up gaping opportunities to bring back old faces, repurpose existing characters to more faithful and frankly, enjoyable, stations in life, and keep this film with a foot firmly rooted in past glories. James Mangold is a decent director but these shortcomings felt very frustrating, especially given the time the writers had to make sure that they nailed the baseline story.
Elsewhere, character actor favourite Boyd Holbrook does very well as a Nazi henchmen and Antonio Banderas is always a joy to see onscreen, even if his role was far too brief (especially given his prominence on the film poster). He must have a great agent. Toby Jones and Mads Mikkelsen are their usual, reliable selves. Karen Allen is woefully underused.
‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’ has been specially formatted for the most immersive IMAX screens imaginable. Regular readers will know that I absolutely love the IMAX experience and think that this format is the gold standard for enjoying big, blockbuster movies like this. The spectacle of a film like ‘Indian Jones and the Dial of Destiny’ perfectly lends itself to the biggest cinema canvas imaginable as it takes you into the action. That’s certainly the case with the opening scene which is simply stunning to watch. If you can afford the price uplift then IMAX is the biggest and best way to experience this movie as the filmmakers intended.
Our intrepid archaeologist has been a true legend of Hollywood and it will be sad to see Indiana Jones hang up his hat for good. They’ll never come up with a better ending to this saga than ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’ gave to this franchise back in 1989 (they literally rode off into the sunset which was perfect). ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’ is probably better than I expected it to be, but still not what I was hoping for. This franchise remains an outstanding trilogy, with two fan-fiction instalments tagged on at the end.
Cast: Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, John Rhys-Davies, Toby Jones, Mads Mikkelsen, Boyd Holbrook, Antonio Banderas, Karen Allen, Ethann Bergua-Isidore Director: James Mangold Writer: Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth, David Koepp, James Mangold Certificate: 12A Duration: 154 mins Released by: Disney Release date: 28th June 2023
