MOVIE REVIEW – Of course, James Mangold is not Steven Spielberg, and it would be unfair to adjust any Hollywood director to Spielberg’s measure. Indeed, it’s rather admirable that Mangold has found his own style to put an end to this astonishingly aged franchise. Unfortunately, what he did not find is why there was a need to revive this franchise at all.

Just like Luke Skywalker or Charles Foster Kane in Citizen Kane, Indiana Jones is among those characters we almost synonymize with cinema itself. Spielberg’s film series, in which we follow an archaeology professor who doubles as a superhero, has ingrained itself into pop culture, as has the iconic scene where Indiana Jones narrowly escapes a gigantic rolling boulder. Raiders of the Lost Ark feels like a part of our childhood. The same cannot be said about the infamous 2008 sequel, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, which shattered the franchise. (And a fridge.) Thus, it’s no surprise that the new Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is an attempt at course correction. Director James Mangold has taken the reins of the franchise from Spielberg to orchestrate an adventure in which we traverse continents in a race against the Nazis.

Indy is old and grumpy, much like Ford himself

By 1969, Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) is far past his treasure-hunting days. Similar to Ford’s media persona, Indy is old and grumpy: the typical cranky retiree neighbor you try to avoid from afar when you see him. It soon becomes clear that he is despondent, perhaps even depressed, as divorce papers sent by his long-lost love, Marion (Karen Allen), lie on his counter. On the day he retires from his university teaching position, he is sought out by Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), his goddaughter and the child of his friend, Basil (Toby Jones), from the good old days of World War II. She is in search of the Antikythera, a long-lost relic of Archimedes, which drove her father into delusions and which, according to rumors, leads its user “into the crevices of time.” In other words, it offers the ability to time travel.

Mads Mikkelsen: the Nazi scientist, with emo hair

A group of remaining Nazis are also hunting for the Antikythera, led by the scientist Jürgen Voller, amusingly portrayed with emo hair by Mads Mikkelsen. They need the device for their nefarious Nazi purposes, which involve rewriting the war. Hence, there’s no choice (or rather, precisely because of this, there is): Indy must dust off his famous hat, perhaps for the last time.

The Dial of Destiny is filled with explosive action scenes from the get-go, from a fistfight on top of a moving train to a frantic race on horseback through the tunnels of the New York subway. A tuk-tuk chase through the winding streets of Tangier is equally riveting, especially as Helena and Indiana leap from vehicle to vehicle, battling with the Nazi criminals. But as the scenes become more explosive and the stakes higher, the direction increasingly leans towards unrealistic visual effects, while sheer boredom sets in. The climactic showdown merely resembles a Ubisoft video game and offers nothing visually exciting.

This was Mangold’s downfall

Indeed, Mangold is a very good director, capable of directing great crowd-pleasers (Ford v Ferrari, 3:10 to Yuma) and even breathing new life into the dying X-Men franchise with Logan. But his creative knife broke in “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”. The film’s visual style is so dull that the film loses all personality. When Indiana Jones explores the path between hidden caves by torchlight in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the contrast between the outside world and the chilling tomb creates a unique wonder. But here, virtually every scene set in darkness is poorly lit and difficult to see. And like many other modern blockbusters, The Dial of Destiny relies on quick cuts that enhance the pace of Indiana’s fights with the Nazis, but the choreography is barely discernible, so the viewer just gets bored with them.

Judging by how Harrison Ford teared up at the Cannes premiere when talking about Indiana Jones, this is one of his most beloved characters, and he puts everything into the character’s presumed last outing. Indiana Jones navigates the high-octane scenes with understandable clumsiness as an older man, while still packing a punch. (At one point he complains about his “crumbling vertebrae.”) But Ford is also full of pathos and stoic in the film’s quieter scenes, as if he too knows that at his age – much as we love him – he doesn’t belong in such an action-based adventure film.

Fan service above all

Like the film “Spider-Man: No Way Home”, which unites the previous Spider-Men for the sake of nostalgic effect, this is another inherited sequel that sacrifices the story for frequent cameos, and wrings out the good reputation of the franchise as much as it can. Mangold (who co-wrote the screenplay with Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth, and David Koepp) clumsily sprinkles winks at Indy’s previous adventures: a clash with deep-sea eels results in a winking joke about them resembling snakes, and the futility of his whip against bullets recalls the fight in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

And when it seems that Mangold is going for a bold move at the end of the story, the film bows down to tearful fan service and turns into an incredibly cheesy farewell that again aims to serve and recognize fans, and for the sake of this last cameo takes away all of Indiana Jones’s macho bravado, so, to put it bluntly: it shoots itself in the foot. This decision reflects what these cumbersome sequels largely represent: they don’t end a story in an epic or interesting way, as the characters would deserve, but in a way that pleases the widest audience, who tearfully remember when they were taken to the movies for the first part by their grandma.

It didn’t manage to crush the memory of the Crystal Skull

Despite the fact that the film was supposedly trying to correct the memory of the disheartening plastic tastelessness left behind by the Crystal Skull as the previous ending of the series, The Dial of Destiny is surprisingly drab and boring. It leaves a disappointing impression compared to the much better previous Indiana Jones films. The whole thing is relatively competently put together, with enough entertaining action scenes to keep the audience relatively engaged during its two and a half hour running time.

But it is so unable to surprise from any aspect, or shake up the usual clichéd story and action scenes, that it can claim very few memorable moments. In the end, the film is just a painful reminder of how good we had it in the past.

-BadSector-