Flawed “Indiana Jones And The Dial Of Destiny” Takes Harrison Ford On A Nostalgic Quest

Who wouldn’t have a crush on the swashbuckling, gun-slinging history professor? I know I sure did. Riding off into a picturesque sunset, his fedora hat cocked to one side, Harrison Ford embodied a different kind of hero from the kind found in your average action flick. Indy isn’t a secret agent or a soldier; he’s just a history buff trying to save important artifacts from the past – a scholar who packs one hell of a punch.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the fifth and final installment, follows the quest for the “antikythera,” a mathematical device that can “predict fissures in time.” Basically, it’s a compass for time travel. Indiana and his long-lost god-daughter Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) chase the artifact around the world, pursued by a Nazi scientist (Mads Mikkelson) bent on returning to 1939 in order to achieve a German World War II victory.

As much as I love Indiana Jones, I was pretty worried when I saw the first trailer. The marketing seemed to suggest that Waller-Bridge’s character would be the female equivalent of Indiana Jones. Waller-Bridge herself hinted at the possibility of her character continuing the franchise in further films. A well-beloved male hero is co-opted to prove that a woman could do the job just as well – I’ve seen this tired scenario play out before. 

But while Dial of Destiny makes a show of following the progressive feminist checklist, it's a half-hearted attempt that doesn’t even succeed in passing the Bechdel test. The film’s main focus is on giving Harrison Ford a chance to show us that no matter how old Indiana Jones gets, he doesn’t belong in a museum. And while Dial of Destiny doesn’t live up to the original films in several ways, it does take us on a nostalgic trip that brings the series to a satisfying conclusion. 

Before you keep reading, take care! We don’t have our own Dial of Destiny that can turn back time, so stop here if you hate spoilers.

Did You Miss the Indiana Jones Train? Here Are the Sparknotes

If you missed one of the Indiana Jones films, don’t worry, I’ve got your back. Here’s the quick review you need to be caught up.

First released in 1981, Raiders of the Lost Ark launched Harrison Ford – already a star from Star Wars – into his second blockbuster franchise. Ford introduces Indiana Jones, a globe-trotting archaeologist, who is searching for the lost Ark of the Covenant with his old flame Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) before Nazi treasure hunters can get to it.

Nobody likes to talk about the second film, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, including director Steven Spielberg, who says it's his least favorite of the films. At least one good thing did come from the movie for Spielberg, though: He met his wife Kate Upshaw, who played Indiana Jones’s new love interest. In Temple of Doom, Indy wanders the countryside of India with a showgirl and a street urchin (Ke Huy Quan) trying to locate a magical stone that has been stolen to conduct pagan rituals. Temple of Doom has recently received new attention, in great part due to Quan’s Oscar win for Best Supporting Actor earlier this year.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, equally beloved to the original film, follows Indiana Jones as he searches for the Holy Grail accompanied by his scholarly father (Sean Connery). The Nazis are the villains again, and Indy is duped into helping a beautiful young German doctor find the site of the Grail. In a climactic race to acquire the Grail and save his father’s life, Indy’s intellect and faith are tested.

After nearly a 30-year hiatus, Lucasfilm jumped on the sequel craze and released Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Here, Indy and his crew traipse around South America in search of El Dorado so they can return a mythical skull to its resting place. Chased by power-hungry Russians, Indiana is joined by his old girlfriend Marion and her young son Mutt (Shia LeBeouf), whom Indy learns is also his son. Once they finally reach the Golden City, the group discovers that the skull belongs to an alien being that departs in a flying saucer.

Dial of Destiny is the Right Kind of Homage to the Past

When Dial of Destiny premiered at Cannes, Harrison Ford was brought to tears by a five-minute long standing ovation in honor of his career. It was the first indication that this final Indiana Jones film would be much sadder and more serious in tone.

When we first meet Indy after the flashback at the beginning of Dial of Destiny, he has lost everything: his son, his marriage, and soon his career. His students are not interested in his lectures on ancient history, and his hard-won artifacts lie on dusty shelves in a back room. Time hasn’t been kind to Indiana Jones. 

It’s not just the study of history that has fallen out of popularity, though. Indiana feels that the world no longer has a place for him either. The villainous Dr. Voller plays on Indy’s fears, reminding him that they are “men…whom the world no longer cares about.” It’s a somber question to ask in our world, which is so often distracted but the latest shiny new toy. But it’s exactly the question that Indy, living through the social upheaval of the ‘70s, should be asking.

This serious tone is part of why the film’s attempts to stay playful fall flat. Jokes are inserted randomly throughout the script, and characters banter for no discernible reason. “You’re a Nazi,” Ford quips with Dr. Voller, “Don’t try to be funny,” and I really wish the writers hadn’t tried to be funny either. It’s a misstep that mars an otherwise thoughtful story.

What anchors Dial of Destiny is its profound respect for the classic original films. It’s loaded with Easter eggs and callbacks, bringing back Indy’s close friend and associate Sallah (John Rhys-Davies) and resurrecting the series’s best villains, Nazi treasure hunters. This respect for the past – both history itself and the previous Indiana Jones films – pays off in the film’s climax. As the aging archaeologist sheds a tear, faced with one of the figures he has studied all of his life, I couldn’t help but get a little teary myself. Dial of Destiny recognizes that the past deserves a kind of reverence, even if we don’t and can’t live there.

CGI Makes Harrison Ford Look Young – and Weird

Disney had a problem when they set out to make one last Indiana Jones film: How do you make an upbeat adventure film starring the live-action equivalent of Carl from Up?

Their solution was to use an AI-enhanced technology to de-age Harrison Ford’s face. After Ford acted the scenes, the shots were run through a database of every shot of the actor’s face as Indiana Jones in his youth. By imposing the equivalent image of a young Ford over the original shot, it made an 80-year-old man young again through the magic of the movies. 

Bizarrely, Ford’s voice remains unchanged in these altered sequences. As Indy is interrogated by Nazis, Ford’s gruff, elderly voice speaks from his artificially youthful face. The result is not just disorienting – it's a constant reminder that the young face on the screen is fake. During these sequences, my mind couldn’t help wandering to the terrifying future possibilities of AI technology – not the effect you want in a movie about respecting the past.

This is only the biggest of the film’s CGI problems, though. Many of the long sequences which take Dial of Destiny to its lengthy runtime are extensive fight sequences on a train rooftop or plane and car chases that rely heavily on a green screen. I know it’s common practice in movies these days, but this over-reliance on CGI destroys the realism that made the original films so special. Compared to the breathtaking sprint away from a rock boulder in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the excessive CGI makes Dial of Destiny feel like just another forgettable action-adventure film.

John Williams Strikes Again 

John Williams is unquestionably the most significant film composer in film history. He has written classic scores like Star Wars, Jaws, Jurassic Park, and Harry Potter – to name just a few. But earlier this year, rumors began to fly that after Dial of Destiny, Williams was going to retire from composing film scores and possibly from music completely.

Williams, a frequent collaborator with Steven Spielberg, scored the original Raiders of the Lost Ark and all subsequent sequels. Highlights of his music from the world of Indiana Jones include the trumpet call to action in “The Raiders March” and the romance theme, “Marion’s Theme.”

The good news is that, unlike Indiana Jones, Williams has no intention to retire after Dial of Destiny. His stirring new score breathes life into this Indiana Jones film, not just by echoing the series’s previous themes, but by introducing the beautiful new “Helena’s Theme.” Its sweeping violin solo, a callback to Franz Waxman’s score for Rebecca in 1940, provides much-needed grandeur to Indy’s last adventure.

Whatever Helena Shaw Is, She’s No Marion Ravenwood

This soaring musical theme is, unfortunately, the most memorable thing about the new woman in Indy’s life. When Indy’s god-daughter Helena waltzes back into his life, it’s under the pretense of searching for Archimedes’ antikythera to fulfill her father’s dream. It is soon revealed, however, that she intends to sell the artifact at an auction to pay off some serious gambling debts.

Helena is played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, an actress and writer most commonly known for Fleabag, her one-woman play turned TV show that became a runaway success. (Fun fact – she’s also the writing mastermind behind Daniel Craig’s final turn as James Bond, No Time to Die). But Waller-Bridge’s irreverent, cheeky acting style is ill-suited to the tone of the final film, and the chemistry between her and Ford never really sparks.

Indy is horrified at her calloused and flippant attitude. “How did you end up like this?” he asks. “What? Resourceful, beautiful, daring, self-sufficient?” she responds. This feels like a feminist checklist that Dial of Destiny is checking off to keep itself in the clear with radical feminist viewers. Sassy, brassy talk of independence? Check. Opportunity for the woman to save the male hero? Check.

Interestingly, many of Helena’s costume choices harken back to Marion Ravenwood, Indy’s tough-talking ex from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Both women start the film in muted tones, a scarf tied around their neck. Both women end the film in white, except that Helena will be in a white button-down knotted at the waist, instead of Marion’s wedding-dress white frills.

But Helena Shaw is no Marion Ravenwood. Behind that tough-talking ex, Marion is a woman with a wounded heart that is ready to love and be loved again. Marion isn’t just an action hero – she’s the woman who survives a buried nest of snakes with a dying torch and one high heel. That’s why we love her and why we miss her as much as Indy does.

This difference becomes clear when Karen Allen makes a surprise cameo appearance in the last five minutes of the film. It’s the best moment of the movie and is worth the time it takes to get there. “Marion’s Theme” sweeps across the screen as Indy asks her, “Well, where doesn’t it hurt?” It’s hard not to get a little choked up at the familiar, classic words because we know Indiana Jones has found the treasure that will endure at last.

Closing Thoughts

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny fails to set the stage for a spin-off series, and its overuse of AI-designed CGI takes away from the film’s realism. But even though it may take a little too long to get there, the film gives Indiana Jones – and his fans – the bittersweet goodbye we needed.

Rating: 3.25 out of 5

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