INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Lucasfilm

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Review by Mark Dujsik | June 28, 2023

Is there still a place for Indiana Jones in the world and in the movies? That seems to be the main question raised by Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, a third final adventure for the archeologist and treasure hunter. Co-writer/director James Mangold, taking over the reins of this installment from Steven Spielberg (Imagine the pressure), makes a somewhat convincing argument that there's still room for Harrison Ford's whip-slinging, fedora-wearing adventurer. The methods by which he makes that argument, though, leave a little to be desired.

The main story here takes place in 1969, well past the time that Indy's encounters with a cult, fights against the Nazis, and games with the Soviets have been finished. However, an extended prologue, introducing us to this plot's mystical MacGuffin, shows us the hero at the zenith of his Nazi-defeating ways, and it also firmly establishes the basics of Mangold's plans for this unexpected, belated, and repeated send-off for Indy.

This sequence is a nifty trick, filled with plenty of tricks both small and significant. It's 1945, and Indy is infiltrating a castle taken over by soon-to-be retreating Nazis, looking for a religious relic. Obviously, Ford isn't of the age of this Indy (At the time of production, the actor was pushing 80). The film's reliance on visual effects is boldly announced when we first catch a glimpse of an Indy with the years shaved off by means of some convincing computer work. The illusion isn't seamless, of course, but it does the job.

More to the point, though, the prologue gives us a series of classic complications, chases, and cliffhangers. The funniest of the last category, by the way, has our hero dangling by the neck from a noose over a massive chasm created by a bomb that has yet to detonate. If the idea of that setup makes it sound as if Mangold has appropriately channeled the inventiveness and giddy joy of the best that Indy's adventures have had to offer, he certainly has in this sequence, which also has our protagonist chasing Nazis by car, commandeering the sidecar and machine gun of a motorcycle, trying to navigate a train filled with his enemies, and getting into fistfights atop said moving train.

It's a sequence of reckless abandon that the rest of the film never tops, but the present-tense setup is intriguing as an examination and open question of Indy's continued relevance. Humanity has walked on the moon when we meet an older Indy, now just going by Professor Henry Jones Jr. at a New York City university where he teaches to a sparsely filled room of bored students. Everyone's looking to the future now, so where does that leave a man, divorced and still grieving a son, who has made his life and career of the past?

This is a great introductory idea for an aging Indy, although the screenplay (written by Mangold, Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth, and David Koepp) doesn't linger too long on the notion, unfortunately. Their answer comes in the forms of plotting, which has Indy's goddaughter Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) looking for half of the whatsit—a mechanism created by Archimedes—from the prologue, and action, which has the pair chasing, being pursued by, and clashing with a "reformed" Nazi named Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) and his henchmen.

It's probably pointless to detail the plot of this film, since it follows the formula we all know. Indy traverses the globe, looking for clues to the location and nature of his prize, while the villains regularly get in the way of and try to put a stop to our hero. The trademark smirk and adventurous glitter in the eyes that Ford perfected in this role is still there, more than a decade after the previous entry and 34 years after the series' logical conclusion of Indy literally riding off into the sunset.

That goes a long way, especially since most of the action has to maneuver around Ford by way of effects and editing techniques. Beyond giving the hero a platonic verbal sparring partner, that's mainly why Waller-Bridge's character is here.

Helena's a fine addition to series' cast of supporting characters—a sort of funhouse mirror version of Indy who primarily cares about history as a means of making money by selling pieces of it to the highest bidder. Other new characters, such as Mikkelsen's megalomaniacal villain and Antonio Banderas' expert diver, don't make as much of an impression, but a returning Sallah (John Rhys-Davies), now living in New York and yearning for the old days, and just the idea of Karen Allen's Marion, let alone an actual appearance, as the one who got away again are more than satisfactory compensation.

There's plenty to enjoy here, in other words, but a major miscalculation on Mangold's part is just how much the action sequences necessitate and fall back on visual effects. The staging of these scenes works for the most part, with a fast-paced chase on a motorized cart in Tangier being a highlight. For a film that wants us to believe in Indy's old-fashioned sense of adventure and rough-and-tumble way of doing things, the obvious dependence on so much modern-day technology comes across as a bit hypocritical and counter to the very notion that our hero does still matter.

Regardless, the high points of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, including what might be the most over-the-top climax of the series (It's almost too pat in its thematic relevance, though, to disregard it as merely fantastical silliness), inject some new life and ideas into the somehow-continuing adventures of this character. With all the support Indy needs for that to happen this time around, the film also makes it clear that, after this, enough has been enough for this series.

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