In my opinion, Raiders of the Lost Ark is one of the best
movies ever made. Temple of Doom is fine
and I really enjoy Last Crusade. I do
not think we need to mention the other one.
I was a bit nervous about this, no one really was asking for more Indiana
Jones movies, but here we are, and I went in cautiously optimistic.
I was pleased with Dial of Destiny. It maintains the sense
of fun and adventure and definitely functions as a decent send off for Indy. The movie begins with a flashback to the end
of WWII as Indy is rescuing his friend from a train full of Nazis. The Spear of Longinus makes a brief cameo as
a red herring of the Macguffin of this movie.
Side note – the Spear of Longinus always makes me think of the 1997 TV
show Roar. If you are not familiar with Roar, go ahead and look that up - you’re
welcome!
As Indy goes through train car after train car full of Nazis, he eventually rescues his pal Basil from the evil Dr. Voller’s clutches while Basil collects half of the Dial of Destiny – apparently created by Archimedes to predict time-space anomalies. They escape from the train and we reencounter Indy years later living alone in an apartment yelling at his loud neighbors as the city is about to celebrate the return of the moon landing astronauts in 1969. Marion has left him after their son Mutt died in Vietnam and he is retiring from his teaching job at the university. Basil’s daughter, Helena (Indy’s goddaughter) shows up to steal the half of the Dial of Destiny – to sell it. This launches the adventure as Dr. Voller and his henchmen show up to collect the other half of the Dial, leading to a global chase and some fun archaeology as they try to chase down what the dial does and prevent the bad guys from getting there first.
Directed by James Mangold, I found this to be charming and entertaining. It feels in line with the Indy we have come to know. The action sequences are great – the entire train chase bit at the beginning is fantastic, and I enjoyed the little tuk tuk race in the middle. I didn’t mind the digital de-aging in the cold open – I feel like it looked pretty good. I also didn’t mind the end, which I have heard some people grumble about. For a character that has dealt with ghost in an ark, heart-ripping in a cult, and a ghost protecting a cup – the end of this movie made sense to me. I feel like it understood the tone and everyone in it was on board and committed to having fun while delivering on what was asked.
Harrison Ford loves playing Indiana Jones and it does show, I appreciated his grumpiness in the beginning but his gradual loosening as he allowed himself to have fun when he got back to adventuring. Phoebe Waller-Bridge was a good counter-part as Helena and certainly could keep going with these if she chose. I did not understand why there was a kid sidekick and felt like that could have been removed.
It was a thrill to see John Rhys-Davies back as Sallah, and I could have used a little more of him and his whole mess of kids helping Indy out of jams. Mads Mikkelsen is a flawless villain and was coolly nasty as someone who was determined to solve the issues of the third Reich in order to make it ‘better’. Boyd Holbrook shows up as his number one henchman in a weird including-the-CIA-in-the-story-for-no-good-reason bit.
I was slightly mystified by the inclusion of Antonio Banderas for approximately one and a half scenes. If you have someone that charismatic, why not give him actual stuff to do? Maybe he was busy.
Overall, the movie was fun and entertaining. Not flawless,
but I absolutely enjoyed it. It’s a little too long, and certainly some bits
could have been cut out, but I do love to see Indy figuring out puzzles as he digs
through a tomb and/or cave.
7 out of 10
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