‘Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny’ Review: It’s Hard To Say Goodbye
Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) in Lucasfilm's Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. ©2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
It’s hard to say goodbye to characters we love. It’s hard for audiences to accept that this is the final story they’ll ever tell us, and it’s hard for filmmakers to craft an ending that’s deemed worthy of the characters it’s saying goodbye to. For Indiana Jones, it’s taken a few tries — riding off into the sunset, getting married — but nothing has seemed to stick. I’m a firm believer in the fact that the Indiana Jones franchise should’ve ended in 1989 with The Last Crusade, a movie that had the perfect ending — Indy rides off into the sunset as the credits roll. Unfortunately, that perfect ending was trashed with 2008’s Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, a movie that has to be fixed by the latest — and final — Indy adventure, The Dial of Destiny.
Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) in Lucasfilm's Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. ©2022 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
Right off the bat, Dial of Destiny has to come face to face with the fact that Harrison Ford isn’t 39 years old anymore. The film, which is mostly set in 1969, opens with a 20-minute prologue set in the past featuring a de-aged Indy fighting Nazis aboard a moving train. This sequence, though short, is one of few in the film that truly feel like they’re from an Indiana Jones movie, not feeling tonally and cinematically divergent from the Spielbergian Jones adventures. Though it’s fun, this sequence feels constructed only for two reasons — to provide certain exposition in a way that makes it feel less similar to the later chunks of it and to show off the visual achievement of de-aging Harrison Ford, which would feel more impressive if the 40-something Jones didn’t have the voice of 80-year-old Ford. This isn’t a complete dealbreaker, but it certainly doesn’t help with the film wanting us to believe that Harrison Ford is 40 years younger than he is.
The only real problem with this sequence is how strange the dialogue is. Indy — onboard the train, hoping to get away with half of the Antikythera — is working with Basil Shaw (Toby Jones). The film makes this clear to us by putting Baz’s name in every damn line Indy says in this sequence. It’s so repetitive and frustrating, with lines like (I’m paraphrasing), “Hey Baz, we gotta move, Baz,” or “Do you have it, Baz. We can’t let the Nazis get it, Baz.” And then, we’re in the present — 30-something years later. The film quickly introduces us to an aged Indy — the same person we knew, just older — before establishing the main supporting cast, featuring Baz’s daughter (and Indy’s goddaughter) Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), and the film’s antagonist, Nazi Remnant Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen, who also appeared in de-aged form in the prologue).
(L-R): Doctor Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen, standing), Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), & Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) in Lucasfilm's Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. ©2023 Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM. All Rights Reserved.
To state the obvious, James Mangold is not Steven Spielberg. Mangold’s direction, while sufficient, lacks the personality that Spielberg brought to his four Indy adventures. The film’s visuals are dry, with a quality of fogginess throughout most of the imagery, with something about the film’s look that comes off as phony. More than this, though, there’s something about the bulk of Dial of Destiny that doesn’t feel like an Indiana Jones movie but more of an initiation of what a studio thinks an Indiana Jones movie is, leaning more toward the tone and structure of the Nic Cage-starring National Treasure movies, which want to be Indiana Jones movies but aren’t (they’re still better than whatever Dial of Destiny is trying to be).
The first two acts of Dial of Destiny are what make this explicitly clear, as they lean away from the typical formula of an Indy movie, veering toward what you’d find from a more generic studio blockbuster (think Uncharted). This does get somewhat corrected in the film’s third act, one that feels more like the films we’re used to, but it comes at the cost of less-developed moments and a brutally frustrating finale. This finale, one that takes place in a location/set piece that was smartly kept out of marketing materials, certainly has a few good moments, primarily when it addresses the fact that, yes, Indy is old, this is his last adventure, and we have to say goodbye, but it swiftly throws away its emotional climax for one that can only be described as the textbook happy ending if there were one for this story.
It seems that though Dial of Destiny wants to give a sendoff to Harrison Ford just as much of the character of Indiana Jones, it doesn’t really know how to, not fully committing to either putting Ford in an action-heavy role or an emotional one, though Ford commits to the material he’s given. His performance shines in the third act when he’s allowed to truly, clearly say goodbye to this character, one he’s played for 40+ years, but not in the “action” he’s given, which, at most points, is restricted to something along the lines of him driving a car. Regardless of the ins and outs of the movie, Dial of Destiny clearly wants to give Indy the best sendoff it can, and though it doesn’t succeed (the two previous efforts were stronger), it’s nice to see these characters again, one final time.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is now playing in theaters.
