To get the important stuff out of the way quickly, I can tell you that Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is a perfectly satisfactory bit of summer entertainment. It contains all the things that one might expect to find in the latest cinematic exploits of the archaeologist/adventurer character first introduced to by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas in the 1981 blockbuster Raiders of the Lost Ark—spectacular action set pieces, endless feats of nail-biting derring-do, a droll central performance from Harrison Ford as the good doctor, impressive technical achievements across the board and lots of Nazis getting punched—and keeps the stuff that hasn’t flown quite as well to a minimum. The end result is definitely an improvement over Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the somewhat uneven 2008 attempt to revive the franchise and I even prefer it to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, a film that, beyond its brilliant opening sequence and the hellacious mine car chase, I have always found to be a grotesque mockery of everything that made the original film such a thrill.
And yet—and you probably guessed that there was an “and yet” coming—while the film is ultimately good enough to be worth seeing, there is still something sort of lacking about the whole enterprise and I am not just talking about the decision by Spielberg to hand over the directorial reins this time to James Mangold. Here is a film that takes viewers on a journey around the world (and beyond) at a rapid-fire pace but as its big action beats play out, there is never any real sense of urgency to the proceedings as there were in Raiders of the Lost Ark or, to a lesser extent, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Watching it is like observing a football game comprised entirely of legends from previous eras hitting the gridiron once again—it is fun to see the old-timers going at it once again but you never quite get the feeling that any of it really counts in the way that it did back in the day when an entire generation of kids put down their Star Wars toys (at least temporarily) to embrace their inner Lash LaRue.
As is tradition with the series, the film begins with a fairly spectacular opening sequence, this one set in Germany towards the end of WW II as the Nazis attempt to spirit away a mass of treasure that they have looted throughout Europe via train before the Allies arrive. As one of these treasures is reputedly the Lance of Longinus—the blade that supposedly stabbed Christ while on the crucifix and which allegedly has mystical powers—Jones and sidekick Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) are not going to let that stand. After the usual fistfights and bits of gunplay, Nazi physicist Juergen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) declares that the blade is actually a fake but reveals that there is another artifact that is potentially even more valuable. This would be half of the Antikythera, a device created by Archimedes that supposedly allows users possessing both halves to essentially travel through time. Jones and Shaw escape with the half but eventually grow apart in large part due to Shaw’s increasingly maniacal obsession with what could happen if the other half was uncovered and the Antikythera was reassembled.
When we next see Jones, he is jolted awake in his apartment by, of all things, his neighbors blaring “Magical Mystery Tour.” Yes, it is 1969 and where he was once able to hold his students rapt with attention at his tales of ancient treasures and artifacts out there to be discovered, his last class before retirement finds him struggling to keep the attention of students who are more interested in the parade celebrating the recent landing on the moon happening that very afternoon. Repairing afterwards in a nearby bar, he is greeted by his long-unseen goddaughter (and Shaw’s daughter) Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), who informs him that she is an archaeologist as well who is in search of the missing half of the Antikythera that so obsessed her father, though her motives are quite as clear as she initially indicates. Also on the scene is Voller, who was recruited by the U.S. after the war to help develop the space program but who still has a keen interest in recovering the Antikythera for his own diabolical ends.
Thus begins a globe-trotting adventure that takes Indy and Helena on a search for that missing second half with Voller and his men in constant pursuit. Along the way, there is a chase through the aforementioned astronaut parade (and concurrent anti-war protest) that eventually finds Jones racing through the subway on horseback, an extended car chase through Tangier that’s finds him behind the wheel (and occasionally dangling from) a three-wheel taxi, an search at the bottom of the ocean off of Greece that involves some very icky intruders and a search of some ruins in Sicily that involves some even ickier uninvited guests. Along the ways, we run into familiar old friends like Sallah (John Rhys-Davies) meet newer acquaintances like cheerfully grizzled sea captain Renaldo (Antonio Banderas) and discover the real reason why Voller is so desperate to acquire the Antikythera, leading to a climax that, even for a series of films that have concluded with the wrath of God, the deployment of the Holy Grail and the discovery of aliens, is a pretty big dramatic swing. (Those curious about the presence, if any, of Indy’s beloved Marion or their dubious son Mutt will have to watch to have their questions answered.)
On some fundamental level, most of this is kind of effective. Although the screenplay by Mangold, David Koepp, Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth is essentially an extended victory lap that allows every favorite character type, narrative trope and visual conceit from the franchise to take a final bow, the film manages to invest them with enough energy so that most of them do not come across simply as fan service and the ones that do can be sort of forgiven. The big action beats are decently staged—the opening sequence, once you get used to the CGI utilized to de-age Ford and to pull off some of the more astonishing sights that once needed to be accomplished practically, is pretty impressive, the parade chase is done with cheeky good humor and while the finale is utterly preposterous, I sort of admired the wild swings that it allowed itself to take. Ford is a lot of fun as well—unlike Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, he seems more invested in the film and the character this time around and invests what is almost certainly his last go-around in the part with the kind of laconic charm that connected with viewers back when he first cracked his trademark bullwhip. He also seems to be having a blast playing off of Waller-Bridge, who brings an offbeat energy and wit to her character that makes you think that a possible spinoff involving her character might not be the worst idea in the world.
This all makes for more-than-serviceable fun, as I have said, but even so, there are still a number of elements in the film that will leave some viewers wanting. Although Mangold is, of course, a strong and effective director in his own right (one whose credits run the gamut from Walk the Line to Logan to Ford vs Ferrari), he is no Steven Spielberg and while he makes a considerable effort to approximate the visual style that Spielberg established over the course of the previous films, there is just something slightly off-brand about the proceedings at times. This is especially true in regards to the pacing—the film clocks in at nearly 2 1/2 hours with too many scenes going on just a little too long for their own good. It also seems strange that the film initially sets up the conceit of placing Indiana Jones in an era where he is seen as just as much of a relic as the artifacts he used to find, it then pretty much abandons it for another story in which he is battling Nazis. My guess is that this was a decision that was reached after the occasionally awkward attempts to place the character in a Cold War context in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (most infamously in the much-derided “Nuke the Fridge” moment that, in hindsight, is no more ridiculous than anything else seen in the series) but it just feels like a bit of a missed opportunity. Perhaps this might have worked if the bad guy had been more impressive or memorable but, despite Mikkelsen’s efforts, they are just kind of forgettable in the end.
Although Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is ultimately worth watching—though younger viewers who did not grow up with the franchise may find themselves a bit perplexed by the whole thing—it never quite makes a completely cogent case for its own existence. Part of the problem is that when Spielberg made The Last Crusade back in 1989, which was initially intended to be the final one, he brought things to a close in such a definitively iconic manner (literally having our heroes ride off into the sunset) that the subsequent attempts to bring the franchise back have suffered by comparison. Dial of Destiny does a better job of it than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (especially with its reasonably touching final moments) and I certainly prefer it to the lumpy likes of such recent efforts—in every sense of the word—as The Flash or Transformers: Rise of the Beasts. That said, my guess is that years (or even months) from now and one’s mind drifts towards recollections of the cinematic exploits of Indiana Jones, this is probably not the film that will immediately leap to mind for most people.