This review of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Fate comes from the film’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. Expect more about the movie as we get closer to the movie’s June theatrical opening.
Like Luke Skywalker or Burger Kane‘s Charles Foster Kane, Indiana Jones is one of those characters that feels almost synonymous with film itself. Steven Spielberg’s series of films following an archeology professor trapped in the moon as a swashbuckling hero is so quintessentially cinematic that watching Indiana Jones jump off a giant rolling boulder in Raiders of the Lost Ark is a childhood rite of passage.
The same cannot be said of the infamous Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the 2008 sequel that destroyed the franchise. (And the refrigerator.) So it’s no surprise that the new Indiana Jones and the Dial of Fate is an attempt at course correction. Director James Mangold has taken the reins of the franchise from Spielberg for a back-to-basics adventure that crosses continents in a race against the Nazis.
In 1969, Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) is long past his time of treasure hunting. Like Ford’s media personality, Indy is gruff and hardened, the cantankerous old neighbor you steer clear of. It soon becomes clear that he is bitter, perhaps even depressed, about the divorce papers lying on his counter, sent by long-time love interest Marion (Karen Allen). On the day he retires, he is approached by Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), his goddaughter and the child of his friend Basil (Toby Jones) from the good old days of World War II. She’s looking for the Antikythera, the long-lost artifact of Archimedes that drove her father a little delusional, and is said to lead the user to “rifts in time.” In other words, the ability to travel through time.
Photo: Jonathan Olley/Lucasfilm
Also on the hunt for the Antikythera is a group of surviving Nazis – led by scientist Jürgen Voller, played by an emo haircut-sporting Mads Mikkelsen – who need the device for nefarious Nazi purposes related to rewriting the war. Indy needs to dust off his famous hat, maybe for the last time.
Dial of fate is packed with thrilling action sequences, from a fistfight on top of a moving train to a frantic horseback race through New York’s subway tunnels. A tuk-tuk chase through the winding alleys of Tangier is equally captivating, especially as Helena and Indiana jump from vehicle to vehicle and struggle. But as the sequences become more explosive and the scale expands, unreal visual effects take over. The climactic dogfight is digital sludge and offers nothing visually appealing.
Mangold is a fine director who is able to keep solid crowd pleasers at the wheel (Ford vs Ferrari, Walk the line) and even reviving the dying X-Men franchise with Logan. But Indiana Jones and the Dial of Fate looks anonymous. The visual style is bland in a way that drains the movie of any personality. When Indiana Jones makes his way through booby-trapped caves by torchlight Raiders of the Lost Ark, the contrast between the outside world and this eerie tomb evokes a special sense of wonder. But pretty much every scene in the dark here is dimly lit and hard to see. And like many a modern blockbuster, Dial of fate leans on quick cuts that increase the pace of Indiana’s brawls with the Nazis, but the choreography is barely discernible.
Image: Lucasfilm
Judging by the way Harrison Ford welled up at the Cannes premiere when we talk about Indiana Jones, this is one of the characters he cherishes the most, giving everything he’s got during the character’s supposed final appearance. Indiana Jones navigates the lightning-fast set pieces with the understandably slow clumsiness of an older man, still throwing a vicious punch. (At one point, he laments his “crumbling vertebrae.”) But Ford also delivers pathos in the film’s quieter scenes, where his stoic demeanor subsides during tender moments of reflection.
Like it Spider-Man: No Way Home reuniting past Spider-Men for nostalgic clout, this is yet another legacy sequel that sacrifices story in favor of frequent cameos, wrung out the franchise’s goodwill for everything. Mangold (who co-wrote the screenplay with Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth and David Koepp) clumsily sprinkles nodding references to Indy’s past adventures: An encounter with deep-sea eels leads to a wink joke about how they look like snakes, and the futility of of his whip against gunfire reminds That fight by Raiders of the Lost Ark.
And just when it looks like Mangold might make a bold move at the end of the story, the film veers away from a saccharine farewell that once again focuses on fan service and recognition, stripping Indiana Jones’ entire agency for the sake of one more final cameo. That decision mirrors what legacy sequels largely represent: It concludes a story not in a way that does justice to the characters, but in a way that satisfies the broadest audience looking for memories of something they loved in the past.
For a movie that tries to correct course on its bleak end Crystal skull left as the previous series capper, Dial of fate is surprisingly bland. It’s a disappointing facsimile of the much better Indiana Jones movies that preceded it. It’s all expertly put together, with enough entertaining sequences to captivate an audience for its lengthy two and a half hour running time. But it plays the game so safe that memorable moments are few and far between. In the end, the movie is just a painful reminder of how good we used to have it.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Fate debuts in US theatrical release on June 30.