Score: 3.5 / 5
We begin this adventure with a flashback to 1944 -- which, if you are anal about these things too, occurs about six years after The Last Crusade -- as Indiana and his colleague Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) attempt to loot a Nazi train loaded with art and artifacts. They're looking for the Lance of Longinus, the "holy spear" that supposedly pierced the side of Christ during his crucifixion, which turns out to be a fake. The Nazis capture them, but it doesn't take too long for them to grab another great bit of mystery history: half of Archimedes' Dial, an "Antikythera" orrery meant to locate fissures in time and possibly allow for time travel. They escape with this half of the Dial before the train is derailed by the Allies.
Launching forward in time, the movie proper begins in 1969 (about twelve years after Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), as Dr. Jones is preparing to retire from Hunter College. Harrison Ford breathes new vibrancy into this character, who is about a decade younger than the actor himself, not through any remarkable physical work but rather through his experience of age. We got whiffs of it in the previous film, but here Mangold works with Ford to showcase Indiana's world-weariness, yes, but not in a hard-boiled way. He's still smart as a whip, fiery and impassioned, and willing to just do rather than hem and haw about things. It's not the existential agony of aging Mangold handled so hauntingly in Logan from both Patrick Stewart and Hugh Jackman; this is poignant and resonant fulfillment (and some dissatisfaction) found at the end of a long and distinguished career, and it's fleshed out effectively over the course of this film. Unfortunately, Ford is aggressively de-aged here (which doesn't bother me as much as some who simply cannot abide the uncanny valley phenomenon); I say "unfortunately" because, physical appearance aside, it's jarring to hear Ford's gravelly, real-life voice of today coming from himself looking rather like he looked forty years ago.
Indiana's motives have never been particularly clear to me in this franchise, beyond a vague sense of historical responsibility and anti-fascism, but for the first time, I really understood what drives him in this film: he is, at heart, an academic, and so when the thought of time travel begins to gestate for him, his eyes spark to life at the prospect of ending his life in some of the history to which he's devoted his career. Why should this matter to him? Well, he's lonely and depressed. This film brusquely changes direction from the end of Crystal Skull by mentioning that Indiana's son Mutt (who was played by Shia LaBeouf) died in Vietnam and that Marion (Karen Allen) has left her depressed husband and filed for legal separation. It's a crude but workable way to cut out Mutt -- who everyone hated, and I will never understand why -- and of course Marion herself, who is probably still as capable of helping the action as Indiana. I'd have liked this story to include both those characters more, because Crystal Skull is unfairly maligned by audiences for completely mysterious reasons to me (I love it and have never heard any rational arguments against it beyond unspecific personal taste preferences... and of course the fridge scene), and I'd like to see how an aging Indiana Jones handles suddenly having an adult family.
But what about the plot? Without his family, who will Indy team up with? Never fear, Phoebe Waller-Bridge is here, playing Helena Shaw, the now-adult daughter of Basil Shaw from the prologue. Helena reveals that she is Indiana's goddaughter and that her father died after years obsessing over the Dial. She herself wants to pick up his research, and so Indiana reluctantly gives her his half of the Dial. Then enters the villain: Mads Mikkelsen plays a Nazi astrophysicist named Jurgen Voller. He is also de-aged in the opening flashback; Mikkelsen will always be the best casting choice for a villain from vaguely eastern Europe. Voller, who is after both pieces of the Dial, was working with Hitler during the war but now has his own aims, something that he announces in the film's dramatic lurch to its climax and which I won't spoil here. He attacks the school, murdering some faculty and framing Indiana, who takes to horseback in a spectacular chase sequence through a moon landing parade, an antiwar protest march, and the NYC subway.
Helena, meanwhile, is revealed to be an antiquities smuggler, seeking historical artifacts to sell on the black market to buttress her gambling debts. That, for me, was perhaps the single biggest disappointment in this film, because it's a contrived gimmick meant to spark action and comedy rather than reveal any characterization or offer storytelling originality. Her greedy opportunism allows the film, soon enough, to hop over to Tangier, where she's trying to sell and ends up collecting another sidekick in Teddy (Ethann Isidore). From here, it's a regular Indiana Jones adventure, with his ragtag team trying to thwart the pursuing fascists even as they lead them to the treasure.
But this is not a Steven Spielberg film, and it's also not particularly adept with its action sequences. Mangold is a wonderful director, but I can't help but wish Spielberg had agreed to direct the final Indiana Jones movie. There is some connective tissue -- call it artistic integrity -- missing between Crystal Skull and Dial of Destiny; most people felt that between the third and fourth film, but not me. I feel it now. The editing is clunky and the action choreography is often awkward and incoherent; the fault could be on multiple heads, but this is a far cry from the thrilling precision of similar sequences in major recent action sequels like John Wick and Mission: Impossible.
Think I'm being harsh? Look at two sequences and tell me otherwise. First, the car chase through Tangier is an absolute mess, when it could (seemingly easily) be both visually satisfying and logically sound. Secondly, and more damningly to my mind, there's a scene in which Indy and Helena travel to the Aegean to ask an old friend to help them dive to an old shipwreck that might contain the other half of the Dial. The setup is frustrating enough, dramatically (looking snidely at the screenplay by committee that needed more workshopping), because the old friend is Antonio Banderas, getting top billing for roughly three scenes of work, who seems to be pretty gay with his hunky shipmates. After almost no time, they're all jumping into the deeps and Indy finds himself in a sunken ship surrounded by eels. It's a fabulous concept, of course, and scratches the "icky creature" scene in each movie of this franchise; Indy is taunted at one point that eels are like underwater snakes, which he fearfully and indignantly rejects the thought of. But the scene itself is so poorly composed that it's difficult to see and even harder to remember; terrible lighting, miserable cinematography, an over-reliance on CG action, little cause or reason, and a bizarre deus ex machina make what could have been a brilliant and terrifying scene a good time for a bathroom break.
And then there's the film's ending sequence, which I desperately wish to have had more of. So rarely in these films do we see the full effect of whatever magical item Indiana has rescued or restored: sure, the Ark lets out some ghosts that melt people, the Stones bring fertility to the village, the Grail saves Henry Jones from his nearly fatal gunshot, and the replaced Skull allows the aliens to reactivate their ship and leave Earth. It's usually a fast scene with little grounding in reality, lots of magic and mystery, and then we're done, so when this movie started hinting at time travel, I expected the same. I was so wrong. I don't want to spoil the ending, but they do indeed travel to another time -- one wholly unexpected and endlessly satisfying for both plot purposes as well as an insight into Archimedes himself -- and we hang out there for a while. It's a great sequence, one that allows Ford the chance to let Indiana be truly in awe of his life's work and the experience of being present in history. A climax to a series that reveals more about the main character than we've ever seen? Yes, please! I just wish we had had more time with that, or that it could have been more foregrounded in the two hours that led to this sequence, because it kind of comes out of nowhere, floors us, and then the movie ends.
I hope that, while this is the last Indiana Jones film, Harrison Ford isn't done making movies. His dramatic work here is the best he's given in a few years, and I'd love to see him lean into dramatically heavy roles for older men, maybe showcasing his real skills and remarkable humor in ways we haven't seen much from him since the '80s. I also hope this film doesn't fall prey to the polarized and polarizing critical commentary of our social media, because it won't survive that. Dial of Destiny is a multilayered puzzle box meant to satisfy young audiences as well as old fans of the series, to bridge the gaps between loved and unloved entries, and to ultimately try to end an iconic franchise. It's not going to win everyone, but I hope people don't mindlessly junk it along with Crystal Skull; even as a fan of that film, this new one made me want to rewatch it and enjoy it afresh. A final thought: Dial of Destiny is about two similar men (again, a familiar trope in this series between Indy and his villains), one who wants to control history, the other who, by appreciating history too much, has become inert and stuck in history with regret. There's a lot going on here, more than an Indiana Jones has the right to offer; I just wish it had been a little more. Or wasn't the end. Or both.
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