Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny – Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indiana_Jones_and_the_Dial_of_Destiny

I have been a fan since the very first film.  I have enjoyed all of them to varying degrees.  It would be hard to rank them.  I think I like Raiders and Last Crusade the most.  Temple of Doom less, but it was still fun.  Kingdom of the Crystal Skull had some elements I thought were ridiculous (like surviving a nuclear blast and being launched hundreds of feet through the air in a refrigerator), and I had some mixed feelings about the ET ending, but still, overall a good film.

The setup I thought we were entering into was possibly a passing of the hat to Shia LaBeouf after the marriage of Indy to Marion at the end of 4.  Evidently, LaBeouf made negative comments about the film (that, from what I can find were mostly self-critical, but I’m sure I haven’t seen everything) after 4 was released.

The setup we wind up with is Indy globe-trekking with his goddaughter played by actress Phoebe Waller Bridge racing to recover the Dial of Destiny, a 2000 year old machine that can supposedly detect time rifts with precision.  The opening scenes are in familiar WWII territory with Indy being led through a Nazi train with a bag over his head.  The eventual “reveal” shows us a CGI Indy face that I initially thought was pretty dang good.  We’re all so familiar with Ford’s face that it HAD to be a great rendering.  However, in the numerous subsequent action scenes, some of which I believe were fully CGI, Indy doesn’t look as good.  Close-up shots look less life-like.  CGI rendering of actual persons is definitely improving and I believe we will reach a point where it will be so good we won’t be able to distinguish live actors from CGI. This will present legal issues of its own.  We ain’t there yet.

Mads Mikkelsen plays a decent Nazi villain (despite actually being Danish).  We see him at the top of the film in the WWII period as well (CGI’d up).  He is hell bent on acquiring the whole device (it was deliberately broken into two pieces by its creator to prevent it from falling into the wrong hands).  His intention is to travel back in time to kill Hitler in order to ensure an Axis victory (yeah, he blames Hitler for losing the war).

John Rhys-Davies returns as Sallah.  Sadly, he is looking very old indeed.

In this film, Indy is a mostly broken man.  His son volunteered to go off and fight (presumably in the Koren war?  I don’t think it was actually mentioned specifically).  This is too much for Marion to bear as I guess Indy reminds her too much of her son so she wants a divorce.  They are on the outs through most of the film.  He is mostly going through the motions of life these days and this adventure reawakens his spirit.

Indy’s goddaughter is very knowledgeable about the device but is only interested in acquiring the whole thing in order to sell it.  Eventually, she comes around, but her character is morally murky for much of the film.  Not a bad thing.  She and Indy become reluctant partners on this quest.

The action and pacing of this movie is similar to other Indiana Jones films.  For me, the “worst” aspect of it was some of the CGI.

In the last five minutes of the movie, after the device has been recovered and Indy & Co. have looped back 2000 years in time and back again and with Indy recovering from a gunshot wound to the chest, Karen Allen (Marion Ravenswood, or should I say Jones now) FINALLY makes an appearance.  It made me well up.  She is such an important part of the fabric of Indiana Jones.  I wish she had been in all five films, but it was very gratifying to see her on-screen with Ford again.  They sort of reprised the scene from Raiders where they were on the ship trying to transport the Ark back to the US.  Indy is battered and bruised and says he hurts everywhere.  Marion asks him where he doesn’t hurt and he points to his elbow.  They do this again in Indy’s apartment and I thought that was a great way to close things out.

Knowing this is the last Indiana Jones film saddens me.  Partly because, well, we love Indy and just hate to see it end, but also because it reminds me of my own mortality.  I’m experiencing the same thing with Star Trek.  I think the only core cast members left from ST, TOS are Shatner and Walter Koenig (Chekov).  These beloved characters we (or at least I) grew up with are dropping like flies.  Ford, for being 80, is in amazing shape and it’s my understanding he did many of his own stunts filming Dial of Destiny. Right on the heels of watching this movie, I watched a documentary on Disney+ about Harrison Ford and his career (with a focus on the Indiana Jones films).  Many of the interviews took place on the set of Dial of Destiny with Ford and other cast.  I love documentaries about actors and their films.  Ford appears to be a genuine guy who is a ton of fun to work with, but who is also serious about making films the best they can be.