Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny Review

Ken Jones, Onscreen Blog Chief Film Critic

Because of Hollywood’s reluctance/inability to create new stories and new heroes of those stories, we are here with Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and an 80-year-old Harrison Ford donning the fedora one last time. Indy is a beloved character of my childhood. Ford has left an indelible imprint, as well as both Indy and Han Solo, so I will never begrudge the man one more adventure with his iconic character. Still, I had a lot of apprehension going into this film. 

Raiders of the Lost Ark was conceived by George Lucas as a modernization of the serial films he loved growing up. We’ve come a long way from the days of those serials and the period when the original trilogy of Indiana Jones films was made in the 80s.

IP and IP management are as important as anything in Hollywood these days, so it seemed almost inevitable that we would get one more Indy story from Hollywood before it was all said and done, as they couldn’t leave well enough alone with the last sequel, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. 

One of the mainstays of an Indiana Jones movie is the idea of the MacGuffin, an object or device that drives the plot, such as the Ark of the Covenant or the Holy Grail. In the Dial of Destiny, the MacGuffin is the Antikythera, an ancient device created by Archimedes. In true Indiana Jones tradition, a Nazi named Jurgan Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) seeks the Dial to change the past.

Dr. Jones and his associate Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) prevented half of the Dial from falling into Nazi hands in 1944. In 1969, Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), Basil’s daughter and Indy’s goddaughter, seeks the Dial to sell it at a black-market auction, and Indy finds himself sucked into one last adventure.

Based on some internet sleuthing, setting the film in 1969 puts Indy at roughly 70, and he’s being forced into retirement, his personal life in shambles, and living on his own in New York City around the time of the moon landing, with part of the movie taking place during a ticker tape parade for the astronauts. 

There’s just no getting past the fact that Harrison Ford is nearly 80 years old making this action-adventure movie, and he looks his age. There are glimmers of the vintage Indy magic, to be sure, particularly when they manage to get into the globetrotting, and Indy is back in his element, so to speak. He still looks the part, but watching this was akin to watching The Nature Boy Ric Flair continue to wrestle well past his prime, where there are just diminishing returns. 

It also needs to be said that the opening prologue set in 1944 Nazi Germany, is way too long and features a digitally de-aged Harrison Ford getting caught trying to infiltrate a Nazi compound and eventually escaping to end up on a train. The de-aging has been criticized by many, and while it is jarring at times, it is less egregious than the fact that the prologue is too long. 

While the de-aging technology may not be distracting in and of itself, the audience knows that the Ford on screen is not the Ford of 40 years ago that they are presenting. Ultimately, it is artifice on top of artifice and a bridge too far for the audience to accept, and to devote so much runtime to it is a distraction. I think de-aging can be effective in small doses and doled out judiciously. This is not that. 

Phoebe Waller-Bridge is a worthy addition to the cast as Indy’s goddaughter, Helena. She has a snark and brashness that are winning. I never watched Fleabag, but her performance here might have piqued my interest. She brings the energy that this movie needs more of.

Mads Mikkelsen is always reliable as a villain, and he is excellent in the role of the Nazi scientist Voller with the big plans here. Ethan Isidore is fun as Teddy, Helena’s older version of Short Round. John Rhys-Davies reprises his role of Sallah. Karen Allen makes a brief appearance as Marion. Boyd Holbrook feels underutilized as the main henchman for Voller. Antonio Banderas pops up out of nowhere for an extended cameo; apparently, he was just happy to be able to say he was part of the Indiana Jones franchise.

Time is a big theme of the film, with the mystical powers contained within the Dial of Destiny and the chance to alter history potentially. Indy himself feels like a character of a bygone era, living in a world where time has passed him by. His neighbors blast their music; he’s given a gold clock as a retirement gift. But like so many of these sequels that revisit long-existing/dormant franchises, Dial of Destiny wants to show that Indiana Jones still has it, and they don’t make them like they used to.

I would say that the Dial takes the franchise to a place that strains credulity, but when you think about what Indy has seen through his adventures, I guess it’s not all that crazy where this film ends up. Honestly, the ending might be the best part of the film. The way the movie ended, this was a slight improvement overall, in my opinion. 

Often, people complain about an ending ruining a movie they have loved up to that point. This is the rare movie that made the best out of the potential for a disappointing “hoo boy…” of an ending. I went into this movie wondering if they would kill off Indiana Jones, much like they did in [SPOILER eight years later] The Force Awakens with Han Solo. They set the stage for an ending that might have been worse than death but then pivoted right out of it, eliciting the movie's biggest laugh and making me relax.

I didn’t have high hopes for this swan song for a beloved movie character. Most of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny left me ambivalent; nothing bad or good. The ending is the only part of the movie that made me feel anything; maybe that was a byproduct of my apprehension that I brought into the theater with me, which I’ll own, but the studio shares some of the responsibility for that too. 

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is not the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but it never comes close to being on the level of the original trilogy of films, either. Indiana Jones belongs in a museum. Now that they’ve gotten this out of their system, perhaps the studio can let him stay there in peace.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5 stars