'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny' is a Long and Lifeless Bore: Review

“It’s not the years, honey, it’s the mileage” a weary Indiana Jones says to Marion in his first onscreen adventure, Raiders of the Lost Ark. After four decades, Indiana Jones has racked up enough years and mileage to make viewers wonder if another sequel was even possible, let alone worth the effort. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny proves that the swashbuckling action hero is no match against time, even with the nostalgia of Indy’s golden years being called upon with various cameos and references to the past.

Perhaps the saddest attempt to recapture a bygone era was the opening setpiece, where Disney once again attempts to portray a younger version of one of their stars by de-aging them. The technology has certainly come a long way since the Mr. Clean face of Professor X in X-Men: The Last Stand, but it is still not convincing enough to hold up for long moving sequences like the opening of the film, which portrays Indiana Jones fighting a train full of Nazis during World War II.

I know casting a younger actor would probably not be successful, as we saw with Solo: A Star Wars Story, but then what else could they have done? Honestly, they could have cut the entire sequence, and it really would not have made much of a difference to the plot. Or they could just not have made this movie at all. The opening does feature some signature Indy moments, like an out-of-control turret ripping apart the moving train and Indy disguised as a Nazi to elude capture, but I assume it was all shot at night to disguise some of the shoddy effects.

Fast forward to 1969, and Indiana Jones is still teaching; only the students who once threw themselves at him out of excitement are now sleeping through his lectures. Everyone except one woman that turns out to be his goddaughter, Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), and who has an interest in the titular dial of Archimedes to sell on the black market. At the same time Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) and his forgettable henchmen—one is tall, the other is Boyd Holbrook—assisted by the CIA are after the dial as well. One laughable getaway sees Jones slowly pushing a series of shelves over to escape; later he steals a horse and rides it through a ticker tape parade and a subway in the best sequence of the film. And the whole film switches back and forth between overlong chase sequences that are mostly tedious but usually containing one memorable moment in them that show signs of life.

And to the point of tedium: Dial of Destiny follows the trend of recent Hollywood blockbusters that are almost three hours long (say what you will about The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, but at least it tapped out at two hours like the rest of the franchise). Crystal Skull also had the benefit of Spielberg returning. James Mangold is as good a successor as anybody to take over a hit franchise after what he did with Logan (my favorite movie of 2017), but the digital aesthetic and use of visual effects gives everything a washed-out look that makes everything feel fake and removes any suspense from the action. For example, take Indy’s first voyage underwater which is immediately undercut by the fact that everything is so dark and incomprehensible that I didn’t know where to look.

However, the film is not without its merits. Waller-Bridge is quick and brings much-needed levity and wit to the story, no doubt in part to her background in improvisation and comedy. The third act also takes a significant swing that was so different and unexpected that I wished that more of the film had the same freedom and imagination from it. Lastly, while Harrison Ford can no longer sell the action scenes, his wounded and regretful delivery of a select few lines proves that he is still a powerful actor that can deliver a lot of emotion without having to shout or play it big.

Overall, The Dial of Destiny is not the huge rebound that many were hoping for after the last installment (Dial of Destiny co-writer David Koepp also co-wrote The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull). In fact, I encourage people to revisit Crystal Skull again because, despite its flaws, Spielberg’s direction and the action in the first hour is a lot better than its reputation.

What Dial of Destiny does is play the old hits, hoping that you won’t be able to tell the difference. It’s a series of drawn out chase scenes around the world that fail to make up for the lack of excitement. I love this character and the John Williams score that accompanies him, but much like the de-aged face that opens the film, I was all too aware throughout that what I was watching was not a priceless artifact but a knockoff—one that Disney paid $300 million for. That’s a lot of money for fool’s gold.