Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny review – I did Nazi this coming

In what has become more indisputable fact than opinion thanks to the internet’s insistence that it doesn’t even exist, I’ve always felt 2008’s Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull to be the weakest of all the Indiana Jones movies. However, I would argue that despite its many foibles, Crystal Skull is better than the memes would have you remember. It definitely has several forehead-slappers, but there are some great action set pieces and solid character beats to be found in franchise director Steven Spielberg’s fourth and last Indy film.

Crystal Skull’s most heinous crime though, worse than the infamous nuking of the fridge, was not realizing that it wasn’t needed. Star Harrison Ford’s Indy had already had his literal “riding into the sunset” moment in 1989’s Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade and it was fantastic. It would take a remarkable film to justify itself as a more deserved new capstone on the career of one of cinema’s most beloved heroes. And unfortunately for replacement director James Mangold, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is merely a good film.

Tapped to replace Spielberg by none other than Ford himself, Mangold has already showed us he can give a gruff old hero a brilliant sendoff with Logan, his 2017 comic book opus which balanced action, heart, and daring script choices in masterful fashion. That balance is just not quite here though, though not for lack of trying on Mangold’s part. Or Ford’s, for that matter. Playing an extra crotchety, past-his-prime Indiana Jones, who, on the day of his retirement from middling academia, is dragged into a final jaunt by his estranged god-daughter Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), Ford nails it. The years have now caught up to that famous mileage and then some, but the wryness remains underneath the grumpy old man routine. And when push comes to shove, he’s still making it up as he goes with bullwhip in hand. He’s just doing it lot creakier now.

Set in 1969, in the heart of the Space Race, the script by Mangold and a trio of other credited writers also gives us an Indy whom the world has passed by. The barely conscious students in his class frantically interrupt his lecture as a parade in honour of NASA’s Apollo 11 mission marches by his inner-city college. Everybody is looking to the future, while Indy is still obsessed with the past. Not surprising as Dial of Destiny finds our hero in rather morose present circumstances, the Happily Ever After promised at the end of Crystal Skull having seemingly melted away like a Nazi faced with divine power.

Speaking of which, the goose-stepping baddies are back. They’re front and center in Dial of Destiny’s best offering: A 15-minute-long prologue set in 1944, in which Indy and fellow archeologist/Helena’s father, Basil Shaw (Toby Jones, in a great little turn), face off against a group of Nazis on a speeding train in an attempt to stop Hitler’s forces from absconding with precious artifacts. It’s also here that they encounter Jürgen Voller (Madds Mikkelsen), a Nazi physicist who has his sights set on a particular clockwork McGuffin, the eponymous Dial (a real-life mysterious artifact, proposed in the movie to have been designed by Archimedes), which he believes could win the war if his superiors would only heed his advice.

Feeling very much like Mangold sagely copied the homework of a young Spielberg at his rip-roaring peak, it’s an invigorating segment which pulls off the magical feat of turning back time for both fans and cast. The latter thanks to some incredible de-aging VFX used to transform the 80-year-old Ford into his primal young self. The effect isn’t perfect, with some uncanny valley dead-eye persisting, but it’s very effective.

It’s questions about this particular old adventure with her late father that brings Helena back into Indy’s life after an 18-year absence. Now a very resourceful adventurer herself (the infectious Waller-Bridge deftly holding her own on-screen), she unfortunately shows up being tailed by a group of ne’er-do-wells under the employ of an older Voller. He’s become a guest of Uncle Sam post-WWII for helping to send American astronauts to the moon, but he’s still very much a Nazi with a masterplan. Unfortunately, the great Madds Mikkelsen is just not given enough thespian meat to work with before that intriguing plan is revealed, ending up disappointingly mundane next to the franchise’s more memorable villains.

Thanks to Voller’s trigger-happy henchmen framing Indy for murder and forcing him and Helena on a race across the globe for Archimedes’ Dial (which seemingly has the power to rip open gaping plot holes in the script once you stop to think about it), what transpires is a series of frantic back-and-forth action set-pieces linked by nuggets of narrative and historically driven puzzle solving. It’s really fun Indy-101 stuff, with Mangold’s proverbial foot never faltering on the gas.

However, a breathless tuk-tuk chase through the twisting thoroughfares of Tangiers, in which we’re introduced to Helena’s plucky definitely-not-a-stand-in-for-Short-Round-I-promise sidekick Teddy (Ethann Isidore), highlights a fumble. While Mangold mostly lenses the film with a keen eye, borrowing again from Spielberg’s Oscar-nominated play of shadow and light in the original Raiders of the lost Ark as we’re escorted from one exotic locale to another, there’s some painfully obvious green-screen work that rears its head every so often. This artificial look is exacerbated by occasional cinematography that feels like an amorphous conglomeration of muddy colours and digital touch-ups.

These slips undercut Mangold’s promise to address the criticized VFX-heavy look of Crystal Skull and return to the franchise’s practical on-location roots. That grand ambition drove up Dial of Destiny’s production budget to a reported eye-watering $290 million, meaning this film would need some serious box office clout to break even. Opening weekend reports don’t appear favourable.

And I have a feeling that once word starts spreading about what is undoubtedly the biggest narrative swing in Indiana Jones history, more skittish fans will just stay home. I won’t spoil this incredibly bold third act choice, but I know many will hate it out of principle. Even those who haven’t actually seen the film will vilify it out of context and make it the singular lynchpin on which they hang their entire opinion. If Crystal Skull’s “aliens” was already a step too far for these fans, this will be a chasm not even a leap of faith can cross.

Personally, I like it. It fits with Indiana Jones’ pulpy matinee reel origins, and there’s certainly a character-based argument to be made for this divisive take, grounded in the tragedy of who Ford’s Indiana Jones is at this point in his life. Unfortunately, it doesn’t feel 100% earned, with Mangold and co. having spent just a little too much of Dial of Destiny’s hefty 2.5hr runtime favouring fun spectacle over the character work needed to truly sell this wildly ambitious ending. None of that time is spent on a backdoor pilot push to extend the franchise though (not even a credit scene), meaning this almost certainly is it for Ford, as advertised. And that’s a problem.

Despite a handful of filmmaking hiccups and sometimes feeling like it’s pulling from the franchise’s greatest hits (greatest whips?!), Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is undoubtedly entertaining with big action and BIG ideas, and Waller-Bridge is a neat addition to proceedings. There’s even a familiar fan-favourite face or two who show up for bonus geek-out points. There’s also no denying the nostalgia kick of Ford, bullwhip in hand again, giving all his octogenarian frame can give for one last hurrah. This just should have been a HURRAH!!! though.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is opened in cinemas this past Friday, 30 June 2023.