Indy raids his greatest hits in Dial of Destiny
Adventurer’s latest film follows a winning formula
Friday, 30th June 2023 — By Dan Carrier
Harrison Ford in his latest Indiana adventure [© Lucas Film Ltd]
INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY
Directed by James Mangold
Certificate: 12a
☆☆☆
THIS new Indiana film is a smorgasbord of the adventurer’s greatest hits. Mixing some ancient history with sci-fi, and kicking evil Nazis down the steps to hell, all while playing for a laugh every other scene, director James Mangold has looked at what made the franchise a hit and stuck to the formula.
It’s no bad thing – this is a much easier watch than the plasticky feel of Indy’s last outing, The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
Instead this plays like a compilation – jokes first aired in the 1981 Raiders film are referenced, and the plot is the same. Instead of Nazis chasing the Ark of the Covenant, this time Nazis are searching for a machine built by Archimedes that makes travel across centuries a reality.
The tone is set from the start, when we meet Indy (a CGI made-up version of Harrison Ford circa 40 years ago) on a secret mission behind enemy lines to snatch a dagger said to have drawn Christ’s blood from the hands of super-villainous Nazi Dr Voller (Mads Mikkelsen). As with Raiders, the plan is to get this dagger into Hitler’s hands, so its magic properties would help him win the war.
Indy, helped by his spectacled Oxford don sidekick Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) sets off to retrieve the artefact and is put through major scrape after major scrape, from being strung up in a bell tower to the archetypal Western punch-up on a fast-moving train.
After the opening breathlessness, we are transported to the 1960s and Ford as he looks today. Indy is retiring. We learn he is a drunk, has split from Marion (Karen Allen). Life has been unkind – he lost his son in Vietnam and he’s seriously depressed. Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), the daughter of Basil, rocks up and it kick-starts an adventure of unreformed Nazis racing Indy and Helena to find the other half of the Dial of Destiny to save the world.
Ford carries himself with gravitas while Waller-Bridge brings a Fleabag energy – her character adds a stereotypical British quirk to the action.
This film brings nothing new to a franchise that should have stopped at The Last Crusade, when Indy drank from the Holy Grail and earned immortality.
But genuine fans will feel a warm glow as Indy does what we love him for – beating the living daylights out of Nazis.
