Harrison Ford didn’t need to do Dial of Destiny. He’s already a legend. But it certainly sounds like of all the characters he’s played he likes Indy the best, and felt the character needed a proper sendoff. If this happens to be Ford’s curtain call as Indiana Jones, Dial of Destiny does a decent job of honoring the legacy of one of cinema’s great actors/characters. And Indy’s theme, one of John Williams’s great creations: man, just hearing it makes my body leap to its feet with excitement.
After meeting his son and defeating Cate Blanchett’s communists, professor Henry Jones (Ford) has settled into the last years of his career at Hunter College in 1969, slowly being pushed into retirement. As the space race is heating up in the US, German scientist Jurgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) looks to the past, specifically for Archimedes’s antikythera Jones and his colleague Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) stole from the Nazis in the 1940s. Voller’s not the only one on the hunt for the dial though: Shaw’s daughter and Indiana’s goddaughter Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) is also on the hunt for this artifact, convinced of its abilities to give a person either superhuman abilities (Voller) or lots and lots of money (Helena).
Dial of Destiny is the Indiana Jones greatest hits album version of a movie. Like a great band, director James Mangold takes pieces of each of the 4 previous films to deliver a nostalgic experience for the fans. From Raiders, the beloved first, we get most of the hits a long opening sequence that introduces the main players of the story and takes us back to Northern Africa with help from Indy’s buddy Sallah (John Rhys-Davies). From Temple of Doom, we get a spunky young sidekick (Ethann Isidore) for Indy and Helena to bounce off of. From Last Crusade, we get a fun extended car chase with people jumping from vehicle to vehicle as well as Indy working with his family. And from even the maligned Crystal Skull, we get a couple emotional beats that help explain how aging has affected our favorite archaeologist. Mangold mixes them together for a mostly fun blend of action and history that fans should love as the 80 year old Ford shows he’s still got the stuff.
As far as the story goes, the movie and Indiana Jones are stuck in this tug of war between the past and the future. Mangold said Raiders was the biggest inspiration for Dial of Destiny, so of course we were getting a flashback to introduce Archimedes’s antikythera. But instead of River Phoenixing a new actor by giving us a younger Indiana Jones, the movie decides to deage Ford with technology that still isn’t quite good enough, giving the movie a feel like we’re watching a really weird deepfake of an Indiana Jones movie, with CGI undercutting some of the charms of Indy’s practical effects history. Not all of the tug of war is bad though: Phoebe Waller-Bridge is a nice addition to the cast, unburdened by being related to Indiana and carrying the mantle of Karen Allen’s wonderful legacy as the underestimated woman pulling the strings of the story more than she lets on. The biggest gripe I have is with the movie’s ending. I think Mangold and the writers found a perfect finale for Indiana Jones, a man of today constantly looking to history for inspiration. Instead, the movie cops out, giving us today’s version of a happy ending for a franchise film. While ok, it’s more of an excuse to keep the “options” open, instead of showing dignity to one of cinema’s great characters and letting them enjoy their last days offscreen in peace.
Regardless, it’s never a bad time to spend some time in an Indiana Jones movie. Harrison Ford can’t help but be his charming, wonderful self, as we get a nice little history lesson about a famous historical figure through a grand adventure. And for those sad Harrison Ford can’t do this forever, fear not! His spirit lives on in franchisable fun characters like Dora the Explorer, who will hopefully get the chance to show the world why history can inspire us still today like Indy did for us.