Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the fifth and supposedly final entry in the iconic action/adventure franchise, is not the film anyone wanted it to be. The die-hards and the undeterred optimists, many clad in dusty leather coats and fedoras, arrived at the theater with high hopes, and not without reason. The first three films rank among the greatest ever made, while the fourth has settled into a comfortable cult of appreciation among dedicated fans. They set a high bar to clear, perhaps an impossible one, but some still believed Dial could make the jump. It couldn’t.
Others saw red flags from day one, and fully expected a convoluted, unwatchable dumpster fire. The negative reviews published following the film’s premiere at Cannes only confirmed suspicions of mediocrity and a sense of disrespect bordering on blasphemy. Fortunately for both long-term fans of Dr. Jones and the casual movie-goer, Dial of Destiny failed to meet these expectations as well.
The film lands somewhere in the middle; coming in at just over 150 minutes, Dial is jammed full of moments good, bad, and consistently ugly. Mangold and Ford’s insistence on providing a meaningful conclusion to Indiana Jones’ story delivers sincerity, nuance, and often overwhelming emotion. However, the film itself ultimately suffers from the sharp focus on (specifically one) character; substantial elements of the plot feel half-baked, and the majority of the new characters introduced are after-thoughts.
Jones has no foil, no love interest, no children, and nobody to fight for but himself. His goddaughter, though played brilliantly by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, is unlikable. Mangold goes to great lengths to make her unlikable, in fact, and seemingly forgets to do any legwork in reverse. There is no discernible turning point for the character, no growth, and nothing to suggest that her sudden devotion to her godfather is genuine; it comes from nowhere at convenient moments to further the plot, reducing the character to a hollow device that fits unevenly into the story. Ford has no chemistry with any of the film’s major players for the vast majority of the runtime, and he is given no opportunity to develop it.
The lack of real chemistry is a symptom of the film’s biggest problem: nothing feels real. For one of the most expensive films ever made, Dial of Destiny looks more like a well-designed video game than a motion picture. Even the scenes filmed on location are lit in a way that makes the scenery look like a greenscreen, and the greenscreens that are present throughout are painfully obvious.
The action is horribly paced, poorly edited, and dreadfully shot. Dial’s major action sequences are packed into a handful of incredibly drawn out chases through various locations. The quick, disorienting cuts leave the viewer feeling lost and rapidly fatigued, especially when a chase enters its sixth or seventh minute of rapid-fire cuts between claustrophobic, indiscernible shots of blurred motion.
The villain and the MacGuffin (the Antikythera, a dial constructed by Archimedes that can predict fissures in space-time) are also significant weak points. Dr. Jürgen Voller is uninteresting in that he is quite literally the embodiment of pure evil, a Nazi so dedicated that he dreams of killing Hitler and giving it all another go. Absent is the nuance of Raiders’ René Belloq, who was not completely unlike Indy himself. The Antikythera is also by far the weakest object of focus in the franchise; it harbors no inherent power, and the phenomenon it is connected to is purely scientific. The wrathful, supernatural power of the Ark, the Sankara Stones, and the Grail are sorely missed.
With all of this said, Dial of Destiny should be commended on one major front: the focus given to Indy’s character, though detrimental to the film as a whole, does ultimately pay off for dedicated fans. Mangold handles the aging hero deftly, allowing the character’s actions to speak for themselves; we know how old Ford is, so there isn’t much use in pointing fingers. The “I’m too old for this shit” jokes are kept to a minimum, and Indy, thankfully, can still hold his own in a fight. Jones’ journey reaches a logical, realistic, and incredibly emotional peak with a reunion. Karen Allen is a breath of fresh air as Marion Ravenwood, reprising her role as the iconic character in the film’s final moments; her chemistry with Ford is immediately palpable, and her flawless (but brief) performance delivers the emotion the film so desperately needs. This, paired smartly with Williams’ “Marion’s Theme” at precisely the right moment, is the only time Dial comes close to achieving what Raiders did so many years ago, and only then through effective imitation.
Dial of Destiny is a middling adventure film and a terrible action film, but it is, ultimately, a sufficient Indiana Jones film. As a farewell to Dr. Jones and the great Harrison Ford, it is better than it has any right to be.
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