When a legacy film doesn't live up to the original it is often dismissed as a failure. We hear it all the time about a film "isn't as good as the first". It is such a dumb way to evaluate a film. For me, I ask myself, did I enjoy it? Did I have fun? Would I watch it again? For me the answers to all of that in regards to the "final" Indiana Jones film are yes! The Dial of Destiny isn't the best Indiana Jones movie but it is a fun time at the movies and that's what I went in for. It never lagged. The story and characters were compelling. And the arc fell nicely into the legacy of the series.
I'll admit I was looking for a little something else. I wanted Ford and his iconic character to have a good send off. What I appreciated about The Dial of Destiny is the way it asks questions about legacy, the past/history, and living in the present when so much has changed. Ford gets to have some truly moving scenes where he reminds us that he was not just one of the biggest action stars of the last century but he was, and is, a tremendous actor. Indy himself gets a strong arc from a man who felt everything he lived for was in the past to someone who finds reasons to go on. There can always be another chapter and it doesn't have to be what the previous ones were.
Waller-Bridge is a delight. She brings her own idiosyncratic wonderfulness to her role as Helena and brings the sort of next generation swashbuckler energy that perhaps was missing in Shia LaBeouf. Not only does she get to be complicated in her motivations and emotions, she gets to be a fully rounded character. I especially appreciated how she got to be a sexual human being in ways female characters in these sorts of movies never do, not as the object of men's affection but as someone with her own playful desires and energies.
I am going to comment on the de-aging. It was frickin' amazing. This looked so much better than how we've seen this done in other media. The only problem was the Ford's voice was still "old man" voice. He didn't sound like a younger Indy. They needed to de-age his vocal chords as well. As for the rest of the film's spectacle, I was on the edge of my seat through the classic traps and shenanigans. Jones barely makes it out by the skin of his teeth time and again and I was hooked. I felt the script took little downtime from it's adventure and when it did it used those quiet moments quite effectively to develop character and invest us in this journey.
The film is about both moving forward and looking back so its nods to nostalgia (which are not heavy handed or overbearing) are part and parcel of the story it is telling. For me this end chapter for Indy is a nice way to say goodbye. It harkens back to his glory days by evoking feelings we had in his older stories, while giving him more age appropriate adventures to get up to. And he gets to heal a bit, suggesting that our hero had fairly pleasant golden years. I'll take it.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny
Starring: Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelsen, Toby Jones, Boyd Holbrook, Ethann Isidore, Renée Wilson, John Rhys-Davies, Thomas Kretschmann, Antonio Banderas, Karen Allen, Nasser Memarzia
Director: James Mangold
Writers: Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth, David Koepp, James Mangold
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