TL;DR – While some aspects don’t quite work, I would say this is a nice epilogue to the Indiana Jones franchise.

Post-Credit Scene – There is no post-credit scene.

Disclosure – I paid to see this film.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny Review –

We have seen many films try to recapture the past with a middling effect, hoping that nostalgia will lead to a quick buck. But rarely do you see them try to pivot that nostalgia to create a swansong for a character. Well, that is sort of what we get today, with a legacy film that is not looking to pass the torch but raise one last drink before the bar closes.

So to set the scene, it is the closing months of WW2 and Indy (Harrison Ford) is trying to infiltrate a castle in the French Alps that the Nazis are using as a staging post to ship back all their looted goods as France is reclaimed. He and Basil (Toby Jones) are after the Lance of Longinus [the spear that pierced Christ’s side], but it is whisked away on a train. While the Spear turns out to be a fake, on the train, Nazi physicist Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) discovers something much more valuable. It is now 1969, and Indy is feeling bitter with the world after the death of his son and the failure of his marriage, but when Basil’s daughter and his god-daughter, Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), arrives looking for the item they stole from that train, darker forces might be just on her heals.

I was honestly surprised when I heard that they would make another Indiana Jones film, given Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was positioned as a ‘passing of the torch’ film, only for that to fall flat on its face. I enjoyed the franchise as a whole, but as I walked in, I wondered if it had the strength to keep going 15 years since its last film, 40 years since the first film, and an 80-year-old lead heading an action-adventure movie. Well, I am glad to say that most [but not all] of those apprehensions ended up being unfounded.  

The core strength of this film is the cast, who are clearly here to make the best of this final outing. Not only is Harrison Ford Indy, but he captures a very realistic portrayal of someone who just had their emotional support structure ripped out from underneath him. The world is moving past him, and he no longer feels like he has a place in it. Mads Mikkelsen slots perfectly in as the Nazi now NASA but probably still a Nazi scientist, and I would feel bad about Boyd Holbrook being typecast as the henchman if he was not so good at it. Phoebe Waller-Bridge brings the energy the film needs, and it is nice to show the murkier side of archaeology compared to Indy’s “It should be in a museum”. Ethann Isidore could have been just a rip off of Short Round, but he makes the character his own, and hey, it is just nice to see Antonio Banderas, John Rhys-Davies, Toby Jones, and Karen Allen pop up as part of the supporting cast.

Regarding the action sequences, the film is a little more subdued than in previous outings. The opening train chase is probably the closest to what the franchise is used to, and it is filled with all those little moments that make it shine. For example, his uniform is used for disguise but also gets him caught on several occasions. Also, this is some of the better de-aging we have seen in a film. We have gone a long way since Tron Legacy, but setting things at night does help cover up some of the inconsistencies. The rest tend to work much more with the reality of how old Indy would be in the 1960s, and I liked that they were not glossing over this fact. He still knows how to rid a horse, but there is no leaping onto a tank moment. James Mangold knows how to work within this framework, and it all works as long as you don’t know too much about the bends.

However, these little inconsistencies kept popping up while watching the film, which shouldn’t happen in a movie with this price tag. For all the great action set-piece moments, like the slow shot of the bomb sinking through the rug to the floor below, we get some awkward speed ramping that rips you out of the moment. Then there are all the narrative contrivances that the film uses to get Indy and the villains to spitting distance from each other. How does the CIA just let a NASA scientist and former Nazi just have his own henchmen that murder people on the regular? How did Indy get on a plane in New York when he was wanted for murder and interrupted the Apollo 11 parade making him one of the most recognisable people in the world? There was an audible groan when Voller announced that they were going west instead of east because of how ham-fisted it felt. These don’t torpedo the film like Kingdom of the Crystal Skull or Temple of Doom, but you always feel their presence. Also, what happened to the opening title tradition? Surely you could have worked something with the Paramount or Disney logo.    

In the end, do we recommend Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny? I would. You need to go into this film knowing that it will be different from the others in the franchise, which might be tonally off-putting if you don’t prepare yourself. But other than some awkwardness here and there, I think the film lands that closing epilogue feel that it was going for and being the final swan song of such an important character. If you liked Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, I recommend Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves.

By Brian MacNamara: You can follow Brian on Twitter Here, when he’s not chatting about Movies and TV, he’ll be talking about International Relations, or the Solar System.

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Credits – All images were created by the cast, crew, and production companies of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Directed by – James Mangold
Written by – Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth, David Koepp & James Mangold
Based on – Indiana Jones by George Lucas & Philip Kaufman
Music by – John Williams
Cinematography by – Phedon Papamichael
Edited by – Michael McCusker, Andrew Buckland & Dirk Westervelt
Production/Distribution Companies – Paramount Pictures, Lucasfilm & Walt Disney Pictures
Starring – Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelsen, Antonio Banderas, John Rhys-Davies, Karen Allen, Toby Jones, Boyd Holbrook, Ethann Isidore, Shaunette Renée Wilson, Thomas Kretschmann, Olivier Richters, Mark Killeen, Nasser Memarzia, Martin McDougall & Alaa Safi         
Rating – Australia: M; Canada: PG; Germany: 12; New Zealand: M; United Kingdom: 12A; United States: PG-13