I'm a lifelong Indiana Jones fanguy who has seen every movie in the series during their original theatrical runs. Seeing each of the original three movies, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom and Last Crusade changed my life in some way. The original gave me a basic template at a young age that helped me understand what a movie was supposed to be. The second set a new standard for how much action and excitement one movie could have. And the third showed me just how satisfying a movie could be when you've spent years anticipating it and it successfully delivers on all of your expectations. I even found a lot to enjoy in Crystal Skull, even though it was not as magical as the originals. Like all the Indy movies, it was still aiming higher than most blockbusters do. Even it missed the mark in many ways, I still admired its attempt.
Every previous Indiana Jones movie was masterminded by the legendary filmmakers and friends, writer/producer George Lucas and director Steven Spielberg. My big concern going into this new episode, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, was that for the first time, a new writer/director, James Mangold, was taking over the series. Would he try to reimagine and reinvent the franchise, or would he try, and perhaps fail, to recreate the spirit of the originals? As it turns out, Mangold tried very hard to recreate the spirit of the originals. Too hard, in fact. Dial of Destiny is one of those movies best described as an "entertaining mess." This film tries to throw in everything that it thinks an Indiana Jones fan would want to see. This includes treasure hunts in dark caves, extended chase scenes on land, sea and air, ancient riddles, mysterious puzzles, magic artifacts, international travel, dastardly villains, femme fatales, creepy creatures, gruesome deaths, witty banter, heartfelt character moments, hats, guns and whips. In that sense, Mangold delivers everything an Indiana Jones fan could ever want to see. But there's weakness in the connective tissue that tries to stitch all of these money moments together. It feels like all of these compulsory elements were written out randomly on notecards first, after which the writers tried to come up with a plot, any plot, to string them all together.
That may have been an impossible task. Dial of Destiny is both literally and figuratively all over the place. Too much happens in this movie too fast. The pacing is frequently frantic. The logic teeters on the threadbare. We're not always sure how and why we went from point A to point B, or what the shifting motivations of the various characters are. The movie lacks the same level of comic relief that helped the rest of the Indiana Jones series smooth away some of its rougher, harder edges. It takes everything rather seriously, despite the events here being some of the more absurd and ridiculous in the series.
On a more fundamental level, I can't figure out what this movie is ABOUT, aside from the aforementioned giving Indiana Jones fans all the things they want to see, and keeping the franchise going as a commercial enterprise. This is a movie about the other Indiana Jones movies, not about any intrinsic meaning or purpose of its own. Spielberg said in an interview that it's a really good "Indiana Jones" movie...but is it a really good film, that stands on its own, outside the context of the Indy series? Not really. It would be a stretch to call the other Indiana Jones movies "message" movies, but they paid enough attention to essential story values that we felt uplifted by the emotional progress Indiana Jones made throughout the course of his adventures. I can't figure out what Dial of Destiny is trying to say about the Indiana Jones character, if anything.
Given that the story is little more than a framework on which to showcase the action and adventure, this movie must be judged on the quality of its individual scenes and set pieces. This is not a boring movie. It feels like it has more non-stop action than any of the previous Indiana Jones movies. The excitement level of all of this is relatively high, but the scenes never really feel assembled out of the tight clockwork structure that Spielberg built the action with in the previous Indy movies. A lot of people are running, riding, driving, flying, crashing, jumping, punching and shooting, but all of this feels a little more random than is typical for the series. The chases and fights don't always build up anticipation and suspense regarding what's going to happen next, and they don't necessarily lead to a satisfying conclusion. They just flood the screen with activity, and end when enough people have died or gotten away.
At a certain point, I decided that the movie was uneven enough that it was going to need to have an exceptional finale to justify its existence. And the good news is, it achieves that. The denouement of Dial of Destiny is creative, intriguing and wondrous in a way that the rest of the movie isn't. I wish we had seen a lot more of that originality and imagination throughout the film. The screenplay should have been scrapped and rewritten as a full-length expansion on what happens in the climax.
Out of all the actors, there is one who emerges completely unscathed in reputation amidst all of the chaos, and that is Mads Mikkelsen. He is the archetypal Nazi from central casting that the Indiana Jones series has been looking for since day one, and the best villain the series has ever had. His cruel, ominous epithets are delivered with an understated intensity through a crooked smile and a piercing glower that owns the screen every second he's on it. He correctly never makes evil seductive, but he certainly makes it compelling. If you've seen Mads before in other movies but never quite found him memorable enough to recognize later, this is the movie that will make you remember him.
The movie's other most important new character, Helena Shaw, struggles to rise above the obvious ambitions the franchise has for her. She's very clearly been given all of the characteristics that she needs in order to potentially inherit the series from Harrison Ford as its new lead, including having a sidekick of her own. (The awkward, overstuffed nature of Dial of Destiny is perhaps never more evident than when the story layers on multiple sidekicks like Russian nesting dolls.) The only real cringe-inducing writing in the movie comes when Helena outwits Indiana Jones on various matters, and he misses clues that he never would've overlooked in the previous movies, just so we can be shown how brilliant this new Helena character is supposed to be. This is the same energy we got from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, when the young woman Rey teaches the veteran Han Solo how his own ship the Millennium Falcon works. Helena is a diverse collection of off-the-shelf character traits, but I'm not sure if she ever feels like a real character. It doesn't help that her motivations seem to constantly be shifting in order to service the wild plot turns of the movie. Is she a femme fatale, a plucky heroine or a hard-boiled cynic? I didn't walk away with a sense of how she truly feels about anything, and definitely not WHY she feels that way. I wouldn't know how to write The Further Adventures of Helena Shaw, because I don't understand what Helena really wants or values in life. Phoebe Waller-Bridge's acting doesn't help. She's unable to bring any clarity to this conflicted character. Like the rest of the movie, her performance is all over the map.
Finally, we come to series star Harrison Ford, who is promoting this movie as Indy's final adventure. Harrison has made a late-stage career resurgence out of reviving his classic franchises, including Star Wars, Blade Runner and Indiana Jones, twice. Whatever the reception has been to these movies, he's never been considered anything but an asset to them. That tradition continues here. With Ford now at age 80, Dial of Destiny abandons any pretense of hiding how much Indy has aged, which is probably for the best. Ford's face has never looked craggier, but his screen presence is no less commanding than it was in his younger days. He's aged into a new phase of movie stardom as effortlessly as Clint Eastwood did. The movie's opening sequence uses digital de-aging to try and recreate the Raiders-era Indiana Jones. While that's an intriguing idea, the technology hasn't been perfected yet, and this scene goes on a lot longer than my suspension of disbelief was able to. I enjoyed watching Indy at his current age more. There's balance in Ford's performance, not just grumpiness and weariness, but vulnerability and curiosity too. One casualty of Ford's age is that we don't get a real two-fisted brawl with a big bruiser of a villain like we did in all the other Indy movies. He spends a lot more time driving vehicles in chase scenes than he does engaging in fisticuffs. But everything Ford does in this movie is done well, and this feels like the genuine Indiana Jones in every scene.
Ultimately, I was glad to see Harrison Ford back in the saddle as Indy for his advertised one last ride. Dial of Destiny is not an embarrassment to the series, and doesn't tarnish what came before (unless you're a fan of Mutt Williams, who is written out of the series pretty decisively here). The movie provides entertainment that will hit the spot for most Indiana Jones fans, even though they will be precisely the people that can recognize what the movie is missing, and why it's one of the lesser entries in the franchise. I enjoyed it enough that I wish the curtain wasn't closing on Indiana Jones just yet. I'd like to see him again, but with less noise and distraction getting in the way of Indy's natural charm, likability and humanity.
Every previous Indiana Jones movie was masterminded by the legendary filmmakers and friends, writer/producer George Lucas and director Steven Spielberg. My big concern going into this new episode, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, was that for the first time, a new writer/director, James Mangold, was taking over the series. Would he try to reimagine and reinvent the franchise, or would he try, and perhaps fail, to recreate the spirit of the originals? As it turns out, Mangold tried very hard to recreate the spirit of the originals. Too hard, in fact. Dial of Destiny is one of those movies best described as an "entertaining mess." This film tries to throw in everything that it thinks an Indiana Jones fan would want to see. This includes treasure hunts in dark caves, extended chase scenes on land, sea and air, ancient riddles, mysterious puzzles, magic artifacts, international travel, dastardly villains, femme fatales, creepy creatures, gruesome deaths, witty banter, heartfelt character moments, hats, guns and whips. In that sense, Mangold delivers everything an Indiana Jones fan could ever want to see. But there's weakness in the connective tissue that tries to stitch all of these money moments together. It feels like all of these compulsory elements were written out randomly on notecards first, after which the writers tried to come up with a plot, any plot, to string them all together.
That may have been an impossible task. Dial of Destiny is both literally and figuratively all over the place. Too much happens in this movie too fast. The pacing is frequently frantic. The logic teeters on the threadbare. We're not always sure how and why we went from point A to point B, or what the shifting motivations of the various characters are. The movie lacks the same level of comic relief that helped the rest of the Indiana Jones series smooth away some of its rougher, harder edges. It takes everything rather seriously, despite the events here being some of the more absurd and ridiculous in the series.
On a more fundamental level, I can't figure out what this movie is ABOUT, aside from the aforementioned giving Indiana Jones fans all the things they want to see, and keeping the franchise going as a commercial enterprise. This is a movie about the other Indiana Jones movies, not about any intrinsic meaning or purpose of its own. Spielberg said in an interview that it's a really good "Indiana Jones" movie...but is it a really good film, that stands on its own, outside the context of the Indy series? Not really. It would be a stretch to call the other Indiana Jones movies "message" movies, but they paid enough attention to essential story values that we felt uplifted by the emotional progress Indiana Jones made throughout the course of his adventures. I can't figure out what Dial of Destiny is trying to say about the Indiana Jones character, if anything.
Given that the story is little more than a framework on which to showcase the action and adventure, this movie must be judged on the quality of its individual scenes and set pieces. This is not a boring movie. It feels like it has more non-stop action than any of the previous Indiana Jones movies. The excitement level of all of this is relatively high, but the scenes never really feel assembled out of the tight clockwork structure that Spielberg built the action with in the previous Indy movies. A lot of people are running, riding, driving, flying, crashing, jumping, punching and shooting, but all of this feels a little more random than is typical for the series. The chases and fights don't always build up anticipation and suspense regarding what's going to happen next, and they don't necessarily lead to a satisfying conclusion. They just flood the screen with activity, and end when enough people have died or gotten away.
At a certain point, I decided that the movie was uneven enough that it was going to need to have an exceptional finale to justify its existence. And the good news is, it achieves that. The denouement of Dial of Destiny is creative, intriguing and wondrous in a way that the rest of the movie isn't. I wish we had seen a lot more of that originality and imagination throughout the film. The screenplay should have been scrapped and rewritten as a full-length expansion on what happens in the climax.
Out of all the actors, there is one who emerges completely unscathed in reputation amidst all of the chaos, and that is Mads Mikkelsen. He is the archetypal Nazi from central casting that the Indiana Jones series has been looking for since day one, and the best villain the series has ever had. His cruel, ominous epithets are delivered with an understated intensity through a crooked smile and a piercing glower that owns the screen every second he's on it. He correctly never makes evil seductive, but he certainly makes it compelling. If you've seen Mads before in other movies but never quite found him memorable enough to recognize later, this is the movie that will make you remember him.
The movie's other most important new character, Helena Shaw, struggles to rise above the obvious ambitions the franchise has for her. She's very clearly been given all of the characteristics that she needs in order to potentially inherit the series from Harrison Ford as its new lead, including having a sidekick of her own. (The awkward, overstuffed nature of Dial of Destiny is perhaps never more evident than when the story layers on multiple sidekicks like Russian nesting dolls.) The only real cringe-inducing writing in the movie comes when Helena outwits Indiana Jones on various matters, and he misses clues that he never would've overlooked in the previous movies, just so we can be shown how brilliant this new Helena character is supposed to be. This is the same energy we got from Star Wars: The Force Awakens, when the young woman Rey teaches the veteran Han Solo how his own ship the Millennium Falcon works. Helena is a diverse collection of off-the-shelf character traits, but I'm not sure if she ever feels like a real character. It doesn't help that her motivations seem to constantly be shifting in order to service the wild plot turns of the movie. Is she a femme fatale, a plucky heroine or a hard-boiled cynic? I didn't walk away with a sense of how she truly feels about anything, and definitely not WHY she feels that way. I wouldn't know how to write The Further Adventures of Helena Shaw, because I don't understand what Helena really wants or values in life. Phoebe Waller-Bridge's acting doesn't help. She's unable to bring any clarity to this conflicted character. Like the rest of the movie, her performance is all over the map.
Finally, we come to series star Harrison Ford, who is promoting this movie as Indy's final adventure. Harrison has made a late-stage career resurgence out of reviving his classic franchises, including Star Wars, Blade Runner and Indiana Jones, twice. Whatever the reception has been to these movies, he's never been considered anything but an asset to them. That tradition continues here. With Ford now at age 80, Dial of Destiny abandons any pretense of hiding how much Indy has aged, which is probably for the best. Ford's face has never looked craggier, but his screen presence is no less commanding than it was in his younger days. He's aged into a new phase of movie stardom as effortlessly as Clint Eastwood did. The movie's opening sequence uses digital de-aging to try and recreate the Raiders-era Indiana Jones. While that's an intriguing idea, the technology hasn't been perfected yet, and this scene goes on a lot longer than my suspension of disbelief was able to. I enjoyed watching Indy at his current age more. There's balance in Ford's performance, not just grumpiness and weariness, but vulnerability and curiosity too. One casualty of Ford's age is that we don't get a real two-fisted brawl with a big bruiser of a villain like we did in all the other Indy movies. He spends a lot more time driving vehicles in chase scenes than he does engaging in fisticuffs. But everything Ford does in this movie is done well, and this feels like the genuine Indiana Jones in every scene.
Ultimately, I was glad to see Harrison Ford back in the saddle as Indy for his advertised one last ride. Dial of Destiny is not an embarrassment to the series, and doesn't tarnish what came before (unless you're a fan of Mutt Williams, who is written out of the series pretty decisively here). The movie provides entertainment that will hit the spot for most Indiana Jones fans, even though they will be precisely the people that can recognize what the movie is missing, and why it's one of the lesser entries in the franchise. I enjoyed it enough that I wish the curtain wasn't closing on Indiana Jones just yet. I'd like to see him again, but with less noise and distraction getting in the way of Indy's natural charm, likability and humanity.