After the home based rewatch of the entire series up to now over the last week I headed to an actual cinema to see Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny (for reference, the main Premier Screen at the Odeon Leicester Square while in the big smoke) and I’ll say it right away, I had a terrific time.
Opening with a scene setting sequence set in the dying days of the Second World War, we get a de-aged version of Harrison Ford’s Indy (with only a couple of brief ‘uncanny valley’ moments) teaming up with Toby Jones’ fellow archeologist, Basil Shaw.
The pair are on the hunt for artefacts to rescue from the Nazis and, of course, all doesn’t go to plan leading to a great action sequence on a train which also introduces us to Mads Mikkelsen’s villainous Jürgen Voller (looking a little too much like ‘Allo ‘Allo’s Herr Flick for those of us of a certain demographic).
From there we jump ahead to 1969, as man has just walked on the Moon, and Indy is living in a bedsit in New York on the verge of both divorce and retirement but his goddaughter, Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), soon turns up to make things interesting again.
I will admit that, at this point, while we had some finely staged action and the set up for a decent action adventure movie, the film was somewhat missing an indefinable something of what made the previous films (yes, even Crystal Skulls) ‘Indiana Jones movies’.
This continued somewhat through a scene in Marrakesh, though the beginnings of that spark were returning and, after that, from the moment we saw Indy’s travels laid out on an animated map, it seemed to have finally found its groove and didn’t let up from there.
Ford, as ever, did a great job and managed to find a good balance between classic Indy and man a bit too old for this sort of thing, while Waller-Bridge was a very good companion and foil to him while becoming a solid character in her own right and getting into some of the kind of verbal back and forth Indy had with Marion in earlier films, albeit not in a romantic context here (thankfully).
In a way echoing Temple Of Doom we also had a younger member of Indy’s team in Helena’s youthful accomplice, Teddy (Ethann Isidore), who had echoes of Short Round but was far from a copy.
A brief return of Sallah (John Rhys-Davies) was nice to see if a little forced and, it has to be said, the absence of Shia LeBouef’s Mutt was something of a relief (even if his absence was dealt with almost too abruptly).
Along with the heroes we had a fine crop of villainous henchmen, all Nazis with a bit of a twist to make them fit in 1969, with Mikkelsen’s Voller as their leader.
Initially Voller felt somewhat more understated than some of Indy’s past foes but, as things progressed and his full plan revealed itself, and Mikkelsen gradually cranked up his performance, he became a classic Indy bad guy in the mould of Belloq or Walter Donovan (or even Irina Spalko).
I’ll try and discuss the film’s climax without spoilers, as I suspect this will be the make or break part for many, but I must say I rather enjoyed it.
Certainly it goes further in some ways than past entries in the series but it still shares something in common with them and in context here worked, after all, we are in a universe here where the Ark Of The Covenant has appeared to contain the literal power of God.
With a final conclusion that felt like a fitting send off for our favourite adventuring archaeologist, Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny may not be the best of the series, but it wasn’t the worst either, and was a lot of fun in exactly the way you’d want from a globe trotting action adventure – but I do now honestly hope we can leave Indy to retire in peace.
Tommy Girard 