Worth: $13.99
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelsen, Antonio Banderas, Boyd Holbrook, Karen Allen, John Rhys-Davies, Thomas Kretschmann, Toby Jones, Billy Postlethwaite
Intro:
… certainly maintains the franchise’s legacy of being entertaining, but as the last ride for one of cinema’s greatest characters, it falls short of what it so easily could’ve been.
Indiana Jones. Action hero archaeologist. A true icon of American cinema, himself a tribute to the icons of past American fiction, with his latest cinematic adventure slated as his last. And unlike the last two times that audiences were told that, Harrison Ford’s age will likely make this one stick. Alas, as a finale to an impressive collection of films – some great, some less-so, it… could’ve been better.
The Indy films thrive on two things: action set pieces, and Indy himself. On the former point, the latest entry bears a similar structure to the previous films (first two acts follow the historical breadcrumb, so that the third can dive head-deep into the fantasy du jour), and while the individual scenes aren’t as potent as some of the past entries, they still carry that rush of watching characters let loose on lengthy adrenaline engines. This reaches a head with the finale which… well, depending on one’s reactions to the infamous fridge in Crystal Skull, it will either be another instance of going way too weird, or possibly a moment where things should have gone even further.
As for Indy himself, Ford doesn’t let age get in the way of his performance, whether he’s continuing to convince in the action scenes or doing justice to the one-liner pearls that he’s been given. He remains consistent in a cast that mainly isn’t: for every scene-stealing turn from Phoebe Waller-Bridge as his goddaughter Helena, or icy confidence from Mads Mikkelsen as the resident Nazi villain Dr. Voller, there’s a wasted Antonio Banderas and Boyd Holbrook letting down the series’ otherwise-stellar pedigree for big screen bad guys.
The script, courtesy of Crystal Skull’s David Koepp, Ford V Ferrari’s Butterworth brothers, and director James Mangold, emphasises that Indiana Jones, the man who teaches and occasionally discovers history, has become a historical relic himself. His classroom lacks the enrapture of old, his body is withered, and the fascists that he spent so long punching square in the jaw have paperclipped their way into a positive historical event by helping NASA reach the Moon.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny proffers itself as a finale that needs to happen, about leaving history in the past where it belongs, but ultimately, it fails to make that same message stick. It certainly maintains the franchise’s legacy of being entertaining, but as the last ride for one of cinema’s greatest characters, it falls short of what it so easily could’ve been. It butts heads with the streaming era’s deathly allergy to definitive conclusions, which robs it of quite a bit of its emotional punch, not to mention further tangling itself in the same nostalgia that it is seemingly trying to say goodbye to. But even if the only one really saying goodbye here is Harrison Ford, he at least goes out just as cool as he came in.
