INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY – Review by Valerie Kalfrin
Roughly forty years ago, Indiana Jones crashed onto the screen with a hard right hook for punching Nazis and a tenacious attitude to go with his bullwhip. Even when he winced in pain, he quipped, “It’s not the years, honey. It’s the mileage.”
The years, the mileage, the memories, and the regrets swirl into a satisfying mix in Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, a warmhearted sendoff for the globe-trotting archaeologist that puts star Harrison Ford—at eighty—back in the saddle for one more adventure.
I mean that literally, too. A horse that Indy commandeers during a ticker-tape parade, trains, planes, automobiles, and motorized rickshaws all keep our hero and the action fleet-footed and believable, even as Indy acknowledges he’s not as young as he used to be.
The film opens with him in his heyday during an extended sequence set toward the end of World War II. Aboard a train bound for Berlin to foil Hitler from getting his hands on various relics, Indy—here a de-aged Ford (1923) via special effects—encounters half of a dial that once belonged to the ancient mathematician Archimedes. Some, like Indy’s buddy Basil Shaw (Toby Jones, The Pale Blue Eye), and Nazi scientist Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen, Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore) believe that it can predict fissures in time.
Flash forward to 1969, where Indy, close to retirement age, now lives in a small New York City apartment and teaches at Hunter College. Instead of first showing him in the classroom, director James Mangold (Ford v. Ferrari, Logan), taking over behind the camera for executive producer Steven Spielberg, frames the older hero in a pair of boxer shorts and a recliner, irritated at the neighbors for playing The Beatles too loud.
Indy always was a bit cranky, but now he’s melancholy, too. He spikes his coffee and reads over a separation agreement from his wife, Marion (Karen Allen), though he still wears his wedding ring.
He doesn’t have long to mope, though. Basil’s daughter, Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Fleabag), also his goddaughter, drops by with a map and all sorts of facts about the mysterious dial, hoping to talk Indy into helping her find it.
Meanwhile, Voller and a cadre of true believers, led by an all-but-mustache-twirling Boyd Holbrook (The Sandman), are after it too. Fresh off helping the Americans land on the moon (a nugget inspired by the real-life space program), Voller believes the Allies didn’t so much win the war as Hitler lost it. If only he could go back in time to change that…
Arriving fifteen years after Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, a less-than-stellar effort that saw Indy facing off against Soviets and finding a pyramid of aliens, this film feels like a do-over for his last hurrah—and one for which longtime fans will be grateful.
The script by Jez Butterworth and John-Henry Butterworth (both of Ford v. Ferrari), David Koepp (Kimi), and Mangold includes small callbacks to Indy’s prior adventures, but it also touches on larger themes of faith and belief, feeling past one’s prime, and what you’d do differently if you could.
Thankfully, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny seems less concerned with who might take over the hat and the whip than just letting Ford inhabit this character one more time. He and Waller-Bridge play amusingly off each other, with Helena less enthralled by history than cold hard cash and Indy still passionate about keeping things out of the wrong hands.
He also still packs a mean punch, even if he has to pause while scaling a wall because of various aches and old gunshot wounds.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is Indy’s fifth big-screen outing and his longest, at nearly two and a half hours; yet it doesn’t drag. The film has an enjoyable old-fashioned verve, from the natural light and warm tones that cinematographer Phedon Papamichael (The Trial of the Chicago 7) highlights in New York, Morocco, and Greece to series staple John Williams’s score and Joanna Johnston’s natty yet practical costumes, especially for Helena.
Ethann Isadore as Helena’s streetwise young friend, Antonio Banderas (Puss in Boots: The Last Wish) as an old seadog, and John Rhys-Davies (Kingslayer) as Indy’s buddy Sallah all help flesh out the action and Indy’s life offscreen. Sallah admits he misses “waking up each morning, wondering what adventure the day will bring,” a line Rhys-Davies delivers with such wistfulness, I felt a pang—but not as much as when Indy reveals what he’d change about the past. A teary-eyed Ford sells these few lines with a heart we didn’t know Indy had.
A fun treasure hunt with a few surprises, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is an affectionate snapshot of an adventurer who now feels like an artifact himself. For anyone who’s been along for the whole ride, it’s gratifying to watch him discover where he belongs.
