One of life’s simplest pleasures is watching Harrison Ford punch out Nazis.
It was true in 1981 with Raiders of the Lost Ark, and it’s just as true now with the series’ fifth installment, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. 42 years later, the best bits of Ford as Indy are charmingly timeless — even with some controversial modern innovations. But how does the rest of this polarizing sequel stack up?
Out of the film’s world premiere at the Cannes International Film Festival, the buzz was mixed to bad. Rumbles of displeasure arose over the opening sequence, in which the 80-year-old actor is made to look decades younger using CGI. Some critics lamented that this rollicking franchise had gone off the rails without the guidance of Steven Spielberg, who’d helmed the first four films — including the controversial 2008 offering, Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Crystal Skull.
Still, I was hopeful as I walked into the press screening for Indy 5. Ford was back in the fedora, this time with brazenly witty Phoebe Waller-Bridge by his side as a sure-to-rile dame of adventure. Mads Mikkelsen, who’s made a career out of playing complicated anti-heroes and downright chilling baddies, is on board to antagonize. Sure, Spielberg was out, but director James Mangold brought us the glory of Logan, an action movie whose gruff but lovable hero doesn’t feel so different from an archaeologist who leaps from libraries to sacrificial volcanoes in a single act. Also, I had it on good authority that Harrison Ford punches Nazis in this.
I’m pleased to report that Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is a wondrous return to form for this franchise, as well as a wildly entertaining film fit for the whole family. Plus, he totally punches Nazis.
What’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny about?
Credit: Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM
The movie begins with a cold open set in the end days of World War II, where Indy (a digitally de-aged Ford) is racing through a train FULL OF NAZIS to recover priceless artifacts from the greedy, careless clutches of Hitler’s regime. During his high-octane escape, he not only makes a new enemy in a Nazi physicist (Mikkelsen, naturally), but he also comes across half of Archimedes’ dial, an ancient device believed to be able to predict future calamity.
Cut to decades later, and Indy is not racing much of anywhere anymore. He’s snoring in his underwear in a cluttered Manhattan apartment in the 1960s. His next great action will be grousing at the damned youths who are blasting music nearby, celebrating “Moon Day,” as American astronauts return to the Earth. This Indy is old and bitter, and he wants you off his lawn.
Though he married Marion (Karen Allen) at the end of Crystal Skull, she’s nowhere to be seen in the first act. Indy’s days as a professor seem to be coming to an inauspicious end. No more do students clamor for his attention or flutter their eyes with secret messages of love. They sleep. They stare blankly. Maybe it’s best he’s retiring? But before he can hang up his hat, his long-estranged goddaughter Helena (Waller-Bridge) saunters into his classroom, bringing with her a squad of enemies, including government agents and a familiar foe who’s become a friend to America through his aid to the space program. (Wink wink.)
Of course, now Indy must race to recover the rest of the dial before it falls into the wrong hands.
Dial of Destiny has big Temple of Doom energy.
Credit: Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM
Yes, yes, some Indy fans loathe that third film, which swapped the headstrong Marion for the hysterical showgirl Willie (the hilarious Kate Capshaw) and gave Indy a wise-cracking child sidekick in Short Round (Oscar-winner Ke Huy Quan). Personally, I liked the sharp contrast between Indy and the glamor girl, spiked with their grousing banter. I appreciated the pluck of the boy adventurer and was in awe of the shocking spectacle of every bit. And Dial of Destiny gives us a refreshed version of the dynamic, minus its most problematic elements — like the xenophobic cringe at other cultures and the titular hero’s arguably misogynistic energy toward his supposed love interest. Plus, parents may be pleased to learn there’s nothing here on par with the body horror of past installments.
Screenwriters Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth, David Koepp, and James Mangold smartly adjust, considering changing attitudes toward gender dynamics. Helena is not a May-December romantic interest but almost a rival; she pushes back on Indy while searching for the mighty McGuffin toward her own end. She quips, he bristles. It’s enthralling.
Waller-Bridge carries her trademark irreverence in her smirk, bringing a sharpness to the relationship between this godless goddaughter and her ornery godfather. The scandalous wit that made her a household name with Fleabag is used to whip and badger all who stand against her, friend or foe. And Waller-Bridge shoulders an awe-inspiring confidence that makes her utterly believable as an action hero. One moment, she’s elegantly holding court in a far-flung casino. The next, she’s hanging off the back of a racing car, Terminator 2-style. And I’m unabashedly on board for all of it. I’ll not go so far as to suggest a Helena spinoff, but Hollywood, take note: Waller-Bridge is a kick-ass leading lady.
Credit: Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM
Meanwhile, Dial of Destiny’s answer to Short Round is Teddy, an adolescent pickpocket played by a winsome Ethann Isidore. With a scrappy mustache and an unbendable devotion to Helena, Teddy is in turn a help and a hindrance to Indy. But the snarling hero with a heart of gold can’t turn his back on a kid in danger. So, inevitably, these three make for a wonky but heart-warming team. Pitched into a wild array of action set pieces on land, at sea, and in the air, Dial of Destiny‘s heroes unapologetically deliver edge-of-your-seat excitement.
Harrison Ford is as good as ever as Indiana Jones.
Credit: Lucasfilm Ltd. & TM
For what it’s worth, the CGI version of younger Ford wasn’t jarring to me. Occasionally, a bit of lighting fell strangely across his face, but it was never that distracting. This franchise was built on special effects that pushed the boundaries, from melting skulls to hearts plucked from chests. A romanticization of practical over visual effects might account for the derision towards the opening scene, but behind the CGI wizardry, it’s still Harrison Ford. And he’s still punching Nazis!
It’s fun to see Ford back in action in this old-school mode. However, the ’60s-set sequences unlock an exhilarating new layer to the character. Indy is not invincible. He is older, slower, and harsher than before. Ford and Mangold show us a hero who fears the world has moved past him. And perhaps they’re asking us if we relate. While everyone else is looking to the future and to space, Indy is looking back to the past. But in Helena and Teddy, might he rediscover the present?
There’s a beautiful arc in here about aging and legacy. And Ford, who’s played several of the world’s most iconic movie characters including Han Solo, understands this deeply. He shows us his body, vulnerably nude except for a pair of frankly underwhelming underwear. He’s still an inarguably dashing leading man, but the point here is to confront this Indy has aged. Later, shielded in his uniform for adventure, he’ll be harped on by Helena for not being as agile as reputed. Defensively, he lists his infirmaries — including “I drank the blood of Kali!” — and in this earnest yet winkingly comedic plea, he demands the respect he so rightly deserves. Indy walked so Marvel and the Fast family could run.
Indy’s anger is earned, but thankfully the Dial of Destiny is not about the bitterness of Indiana Jones or his past or even his legacy. In the final act, the theme of looking back gets taken to a dizzying extreme, which will likely polarize fans who hated the ancient aliens of Crystal Skull. But within a climax that is deliciously bonkers in premise and action, Harrison charts a course of healing. On the surface, this is the story of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. But in truth, it’s about our hero rediscovering his heart.
Overall, Mangold makes an Indy adventure that is lovingly stuffed with outrageous action sequences featuring Nazi-plagued trains, teeny cars, snapping eels, high-flying planes, and much, much more. The script sizzles with the kind of biting banter and bravado-polished bon mots that have made these movies quotable for nearly fifty years. The cast — including a superbly sinister Mikkelsen and a delightfully jaunty Banderas — is stupendous, giddily getting into the swing, accepting Ford as their straight man and true north. All of this makes for a good, fun movie.
What makes a great movie is Ford himself, who not only brings the fire that’s long enchanted us, but also the ache that has always made his heroes so much more than cool. He makes them magnificently human.
Plus, he punches out Nazis.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny opens exclusively in theaters June 30.
