The Twilight of "Indiana Jones"

Minor spoilers ahead.

There's something rather lovely about Harrison Ford being in eighties, and still being able to make an "Indiana Jones" movie.  Ford is still a charismatic performer, and it's wonderful to have him back on our screens as often as he wants to be there.  At the same time, there's something undeniably ghoulish about this too.  Ford is in great shape, but clearly not able to participate in the kind of action scenes we expect from an "Indiana Jones" movie.  Most of "Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny" takes place in 1969, where Indy is retiring from teaching, and very much the picture of a grumpy old man.   

To counter this, Indy is joined on the adventure by his adult goddaughter Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller Bridge), an archaeologist herself who is following in the footsteps of her father Basil (Toby Jones), one of Indy's old friends.  She has her own kid sidekick, Teddy (Ethann Isidore), a Moroccan thief we meet in Tangiers.  John Rhys-Davies is also back as Sallah, who has immigrated to New York with his family in tow.  They're up against a Nazi scientist named Dr. Schmidt (Mads Mikkelson), who is searching for the Archimedes Dial - an ancient mechanical marvel rumored to actually be a time travel device.  

However, the film also tries to give us the Indiana Jones we remember from the '80s by using digital doubles and deepfakes to open the film with an extended flashback to 1944, where Indy and Basil fight Nazi treasure hunters to recover looted relics.  This isn't just a few shots, but a full twenty minute opening act where the digital Indy is our main character, with plenty of dialogue and closeups and interactions with other actors.  The end result looks very expensive - better than "The Irishman," but not quite as good as some of the best digital doubles that we've seen in other films.  There are still a few Uncanny Valley shots, and I was always very aware that I was watching a deepfake and not the real thing. Something about the voice is very off.   

Fortunately, the rest of the film doesn't feel like a soulless copy trying to imitate the genuine article.  James Mangold takes over directing duties from Steven Spielberg, and puts together a lot of very energetic, very Spielberg-esque chase and adventuring sequences.  The characters are solid, and well cast.  I love seeing Boyd Holbrook and Olivier Richters playing Dr. Schmidt's henchman as old school, slapstick villains.  Phoebe Waller-Bridge gets to be both the plucky heroine and the femme fatale rolled into one - which shouldn't work but mostly does.  Mads Mikkelson playing a proper Nazi baddie (at last!) is very satisfying on every level.

The scripting is messy and full of callbacks, but I honestly don't mind so much.  Between the ages of the actors and the sad state of the box office, this is very likely the last time we're going to be seeing these characters onscreen, and the only reason why I bothered to watch the film was for the nostalgia.  I like that "Dial of Destiny" acknowledges Indy's age and his regrets in a way that "Crystal Skull" didn't.  The whole film is built around a time travel device as the big MacGuffin, with some great thematic touches.  There's a third act sequence involving Indy making discoveries at the ancient city of Syracuse that is legitimately one of the highlights of the entire "Indiana Jones" franchise.  

Sadly, "Dial of Destiny" can't get away from feeling totally unnecessary.  I can't imagine anyone was all that excited about another "Indiana Jones" movie after the lukewarm reception to "Crystal Skull."  I'm glad that "Dial of Destiny" resisted the urge to be a legasequel, and there are apparently no plans at this time to recast Indy, but it's hard to ignore that the franchise has run its course.  Everything about "Dial of Destiny" feels like a comfortable throwback, and I can understand why its appeal turned out to be so limited.  Like "Terminator: Dark Fate" and "Ghostbusters: Afterlife," it's yet another film where the nostalgia comes with the sad truth that my childhood movie heroes have gotten old and creaky.

"Dial of Destiny" cost so much money and lost so much money, it'll inevitably be remembered as a giant misstep for Disney.  I prefer to look on the bright side and treat it as a last hurrah for a character I've always enjoyed.  It wasn't great, but if this was the last "Indiana Jones" movie, it was a perfectly fine way to go out.    

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