Steven Spielberg cedes the directorial reins to James Mangold for Harrison Ford’s final, muddiest performance in the Raiders of the Lost Ark series.
This review of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny was first published in conjunction with the movie’s premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. It has been updated for the movie’s theatrical release.
Like Luke Skywalker or Citizen Kane’s Charles Foster Kane, Indiana Jones is one of those characters who almost feels synonymous with film itself. Steven Spielberg’s series of films following an archeology professor moonlighting as a swashbuckling hero is so quintessentially cinematic that watching Indiana Jones spring away from a giant rolling boulder in Raiders of the Lost Ark is a childhood rite of passage.
The same can’t be said for the notorious Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the 2008 sequel that nuked the franchise. (And the fridge.) So it’s not surprise that the new Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is an attempt at course correction. Director James Mangold has taken the franchise reins from Spielberg for a back-to-basics adventure traversing continents in a race against the Nazis.
In 1969, Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) is long past his days of treasure-hunting. Much like Ford’s media persona, Indy is surly and hardened, the cranky old neighbor you steer clear of. It quickly becomes apparent that he’s bitter, maybe even depressed, over the divorce papers sitting on his counter, sent by long-ago love interest Marion (Karen Allen). On the day he retires from his university teaching gig, he’s approached by Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), his goddaughter and the child of his friend Basil (Toby Jones) from the good old World War II days. She’s searching for the Antikythera, the long-lost artifact of Archimedes’ that drove her father a little delusional, and is rumored to guide its user to “fissures in time.
