Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Indiana Jones is another beloved film series that I never got super into. Like Back to the Future and Star Wars, while I saw one or two as a kid and enjoyed them, they failed to imprint on me and become staples of my media diet. Which is to say that I was not particularly excited for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull when it came out 15 years ago, and which I still haven’t seen. It was just another blockbuster, which I’ll sometimes enjoy but don’t often eagerly await.

Given the reputation of Crystal Skull, I was less excited by this most recent outing. Especially when considering the marketing made it look like this would be an action movie starring an 80-year-old man, and not one which really acknowledged that fact. But I try to reserve judgement until I actually watch the thing: I have on occasion been surprised at what works for me.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny finds Indy (Harrison Ford) separated from his wife Marion (Karen Allen), their relationship strained after their son died in the Vietnam War. About to retire, he’s visited by his goddaughter Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), who’s continued the obsession her father Basil (Toby Jones) had with “Archimedes' Dial” (loosely based on the Antikythera mechanism). She wants Indy to help her find the half he and Basil once possessed, because she knows how to find the second half. Little does she know, the full Dial is also being sought by Dr. Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen), the Nazi scientist from whom Indy stole the Dial during WWII, who wants to use it to rewrite history.

The movie opens with an extended action sequence set during WWII in which Indy and Basil follow the Spear of Destiny onto a train where Dr. Voller is to present it to the Nazis. Voller realizes it’s a fake, and can’t convince the high command that Archimedes' Dial is of any value, of which he has half. Indy and Basil fight their way through the train, steal it, fight some Nazis on top of the train, and cause it to crash, but not before hurling themselves to safety off a bridge into the water below.

This is where I first became concerned I was in for a bad time.

It should have been an awesome set piece. It begins with Indy having already been captured, before taking advantage of the chaos caused by an Allied bombing run to escape, then proceeds to tricking and fighting through the train. But between the constant cuts, middling fight choreography, and poor lighting, the whole thing looked like crap. None of the strikes carried any weight, there was no fresh ideas, and it just became a mess of limbs and quick cuts. The train-top fight was elevated by putting the train through a couple tunnels, forcing both parties to lay flat while still trying to kill each other. Unfortunately, the two tunnels were pretty short, so both our heroes and the Nazis mostly just crawled around menacingly.

At the beginning of all this, we get one of the most disappointing and limp title cards I’ve ever seen. I get that only Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom tried to make it striking, and Dial of Destiny’s is more in line with the rest. But it drops in the middle of a chaotic scene, and unlike the rest does not announce Ford as the star nor follow it up with his co-stars, so it truly just melts into the frame. Compared to the rest of the movie landscape, it felt like nothing. It’s as if they wanted to follow the recent trend of no title card, but felt obligated to ape the style of the other films.

One of the most surprising things is that the de-aging of Ford looked pretty okay. I mean, it helped that it was constantly in shadow, but still. However, his voice was still clearly that of an 80-year-old man. The incongruity was weird, but whatever. Not my biggest complaint.

I know I’ve spent a while talking about the prelude. In part, that’s because it’s twenty minutes long. But more, that’s when you set the tone of the film. You tell us what to expect, both in plot direction and in vibe, especially when it comes to modern blockbusters. So its messiness, its lack of creativity, and its inability to feel as exciting as it clearly wants to is foreshadowing.

The frustrating thing about such a long beginning is that it tells us nothing about the themes we’re going to explore. It gives us a taste of the action and sets up the treasure hunting aspect, sure. But it says little about the characters, just introduces a few of them. Hell, one of the main people we meet proceeds to die off-screen before the main plot begins. So the entirety of act 1 feels like exposition, not building the characters and setting stakes.

Some of that is because the bad guys are Nazis, and the idea of time travel has been floated, so the stakes are Nazis changing history. But we need personal stakes in order to care. And they’re just…absent. We don’t truly know what Indy wants, he’s just following (protecting?) Helena while avoiding being framed for murder. Her motive seems to be selling the half of the Dial she stole from Indy. But none of them matter once Dr. Voller reemerges, since they both agree that “stop Nazis from getting a time travel device” is a good motive for…well, anything. Which, fair enough, but it makes it hard to connect.

In the same vein, there aren’t really any themes that emerge. There are a few ideas stated early on, but then forgotten about until the end. Indy doesn’t experience any growth or change despite clearly having multiple reasons to do so and the ways in which his failures are catching up to him. I was most curious to see how old Indy would work in an action flick, since he clearly couldn’t be an action hero any more. But the movie wants us to think he is, so instead we’re treated to a wild blur of cuts and dumb action beats that make little sense. They even go so far as to make Helena a damsel in a scene or two, needing to be rescued by Indy, which is particularly galling given how badass her character is during much of the runtime. At the end, they appear to be tying up some threads, but as those threads played no role in the story they feel incredibly unearned.

I should mention, there is one pretty cool tuk-tuk chase scene through the streets of Tangier. Although it comes in the middle of a subplot that is introduced and discarded almost instantly, and never comes back.

Which is the other infuriating thing. Nothing anyone does seems to matter. Whenever the good guys or bad guys get the upper hand, it is erased in the scene break. For example, at one point late in the film, Helena’s sidekick, Teddy (Ethann Isidore), is kidnapped, giving Dr. Voller a head start getting to Archimedes’ tomb. And yet, somehow, Indy and Helena beat them there, despite also taking a car. On the flip side, Indy and Helena fake out Dr. Voller a short while earlier and send him on a wild goose chase, a la National Treasure. But for some reason he’s still watching them through binoculars, so the subterfuge ends up meaning nothing. Thus, the tension it tries to establish has no room to grow, making it feel like nothing.

What of the performances? They’re fine. No one really impresses. Even Mikkelsen is just a case of excellent casting. Ford seems like he’s putting in effort, but his age shows through in a way that feels like the actor, not the character. Waller-Bridge is a well written character (not throughout, but overall), and she’s well cast, it’s just that her performance doesn’t elevate it any further. Toby Jones is probably most deserving of praise. Not his best work, but he’s compelling whenever he’s on screen. And the cameo from Antonio Banderas is pretty fun.

If you’re going to return to a character fifteen years later, you damn well better have something to say. Even more so since this is all but certain to be Ford’s final ride as Indy. But Mangold and company delivered a cynical, hollow cash grab that adds nothing and fails to dazzle or entertain, refusing to function as a suitable send-off for a pop culture icon.