Review: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
It’s flawed but at least the raider has an arc.
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull may be the worst thing that happened to the franchise, but it’s definitely a benefit to Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. While the fifth Indy adventure can’t reach the heights of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas’ initial trilogy, it’s an improvement over the last entry and a much better way to close out the saga.
After an extended cold open that flashes back to the closing days of World War II, the film catches up with Indy in Brooklyn in 1969, sleeping in his underwear with a glass of scotch in hand and startled awake by his neighbor blaring The Beatles. Indy’s not in a great place. He lives alone and is about to retire from his long-time professorial career because the world has lost interest with Earth’s past and is more obsessed with a future on the moon.
His retirement plans are put on hold when his goddaughter, Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), shows up inquiring about a mysterious dial that her father (Toby Jones) and Indy tracked down years earlier. The problem? Helena’s not exactly trustworthy, and has plans to sell the artifact on the black market. Complicating matters, a group of Nazis led by a scientist brought over to the U.S. (Mads Mikkelsen) to work with NASA, also want the artifact, which they believe can locate fissures in time that will allow them to go back and change the outcome of World War II. So, Indy dons the leather jacket and fedora one last time (?) to get the dial before the Nazis.
The idea of Indy feeling like a relic as the nation’s focus shifts to the space race is a nice one, and using the real Operation Paperclip allows the film to bring back Indy’s nemeses. Waller-Bridge has the energy and feistiness that made Marion so beloved, and her knowledge and resourcefulness are right up there with the titular hero’s; she even has a kid assistant of her own. Waller-Bridge is funny and plays the role well, and although I wouldn’t be surprised if Disney announced a sequel spinoff – please don’t – the movie never feels like it’s setting her up to grab the baton. Mikkelsen can play evil in his sleep, and his presence is a nice shorthand for the character’s villainy, although I’m going to ding the movie for introducing a hulking bad guy and never allowing him and Indy to square off face to face.
As with any Indiana Jones movie, there are nods back to the previous films, but they don’t feel overwhelming, aside from one ham-fisted reference to Indy drinking the blood of Kali in Temple of Doom. John Rhys-Davies shows up again as Sallah, Indy’s Egyptian contact, now relocated to the U.S. But his inclusion makes sense, as Sallah has appeared in several other Indy adventures. Even the film’s final scene, which flirts with being a tad too on the nose, works from an emotional standpoint, sweetly calling back to one of the first film’s most iconic moments.
This is the first Indiana Jones movie made without director Steven Spielberg or producer George Lucas. And while it’s an improvement over Crystal Skull, some of the franchise’s magic appears to be missing. It’s easy to roll eyes at Lucas because of his latter Star Wars movies and some of his more out-there ideas for the Indy films (in addition to pushing for crystal skulls as a McGuffin, he was also obsessed with having the hero explore a haunted castle), but his initial pitch for an archaeologist searching for religious artifacts is what convinced Spielberg to hang up his obsession with directing a James Bond movie and collaborate with him. It was also Lucas’ love of old serials and interest in the mystic that gave the series its otherworldly vibe, and while a time machine isn’t exactly out place in the franchise, this entry’s switch to something more rooted in physics and science fiction feels slightly off, even moreso than the last film’s interdimensional beings (at least the flying saucer was rooted in a love of B-movies).
Mangold is a solid director, and he’s made some good – even great – films, including Logan, 3:10 to Yuma and Walk the Line. But it’s impossible to watch this and not notice Spielberg’s absence. Mangold is competent and knows his way around a fistfight or shootout, but he lacks Spielberg’s eye for scale and action geography. Too many of the film’s big set pieces are cloaked in murky CGI and edited to shreds; they could have been taken from any random superhero or spy movie and lack the inventiveness and tactile punch of the classic stunt work of Raiders and its sequels (although there’s nothing as egregious as the Tarzan swing from Crystal Skull). Mangold’s a director most comfortable with brooding, serious antiheroes. He lacks the playfulness and visual humor that Spielberg used as grace notes. Dial of Destiny isn’t dour; there are jokes and gags, but they lack Spielberg’s wit and sense of pacing. I also don’t think Spielberg would have put up with the grimy cinematography.
This is most noticeable in the film’s first hour, which has its biggest – and, therefore, most special effects-intensive – action scenes. An opening chase on a train featuring a de-aged Harrison Ford is fun in theory but so murky and dark that it’s hard to see what’s happening. While the de-aging technology is fine, effects artists don’t seem to have figured out how to also alter Ford’s voice, and there’s a weird disconnect hearing his growl come from Indy’s more youthful visage. And a chase taking place in a New York ticker-tape parade and through the subways is marred by some truly bad visual effects – it’s also hard not to believe Spielberg would have had fun playing with the Americana and tossing in some humor to this scene.
The film narrows its focus a bit after that, when Indy takes off to Morocco to locate Helena and the dial, and it becomes a lower-key film, and it’s all the better for it. Mangold is at his best when he just lets his characters banter, and there’s a fun sequence inside a black market auction, as well as a deep-sea dive that actually draws some tension and feels like it was actually filmed underwater – and even if that scene’s eels feel completely fake, it’s still fun to watch Indy have to face down underwater snakes. The rest of the film is a dash through the requisite Indy tropes – flights that are illustrated with a red line on a map, excursions in underground caverns equipped with booby traps, an assortment of creepy-crawly bugs. And it’s all fueled by John Williams’ iconic score, which does much of the heavy lifting. When the movie makes up its mind that it doesn’t have to deliver the biggest and best Indiana Jones adventure but simply a good one, it becomes an enjoyable, if completely disposable, bit of entertainment.
Whatever flaws the film has, Ford isn’t one of them. The actor has been in the middle of a nice run lately, with acclaimed turns on TV for 1923 and Shrinking. Indiana Jones has long been among his most favorite characters, and he seems eager to explore a more personal side of the character here. He has an affecting monologue in the middle of the film where he addresses the whereabouts of his wife and son, and it’s a moving moment that the actor handles well. Likewise, the film avoids the biggest problem with Kingdom of the Crystal Skull by actually giving the character an internal struggle and a dilemma to wrestle with; we might know exactly how it will be resolved, but Ford plays the emotional beat effectively and gives one of his strongest performances in the franchise. If nothing else, this film is worth it for allowing Ford’s final performance as his most iconic character to be one with emotion, weight and closure.
Mangold takes a big swing in the final act, and while I’m sure some may roll their eyes, I appreciated the film’s audacity. Rather than the “run away” cop-out of Crystal Skull’s final moments, this allows for a fun and original action sequence that provides a fitting – and thematically appropriate – finale. Mangold steers into the weirdness just enough but, once again, it’s tempting to think about what Spielberg could have done with this final moments and the opportunities it presented for some visual humor. Still, he nails the emotional climax and brings it in for a final scene that works – and even brought a tear to my eye – even as I knew I was being pandered to.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny might not be the greatest of the Indiana Jones movies, but it’s also not a disaster. It allows the series to end on a solid note, instead of the bitter taste of Crystal Skull, which was plagued by laziness behind the camera and gave Ford nothing to chew on. If it feels more like an epilogue than a rousing final adventure, that’s fine. It closes the book on Indiana Jones and is a fitting send off for one of the big screen’s greatest heroes.