Yesterday, I saw Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. I liked the film (with reservations) and thought it in many ways better than the lesser Indiana films, Crystal Skull and Temple of Doom. However, it wasn’t nearly on the Raiders or Last Crusade level. It was very enjoyable and had many good qualities, but sometimes those were offset by negatives. And there were other problems. Below is my review of the film. It will come across as harsher than I felt when I watched it. It’s just an honest assessment of its strengths and many weaknesses.

To begin with, at over two and a half hours, the film is just too long. The first two were just under two hours, while the second two were just over two hours. This one would have benefitted greatly from having about twenty minutes shaved off. It would have been tighter, much of the chaff removed, and sped up a slow Act II, making the movie more evenly paced.

Technology has finally caught up in de-aging actors. Before now, it has always seemed a little fake, even as technology improved. It has finally arrived. In the teaser, Indy is in his mid-40s and looks it, meaning the de-aging is very realistic. And Ford has kept himself in good shape, though hardly like when he was in his 40s,, so even his stunts ring true. What ruins it is when he speaks. Indy sounds 80, not 45. Surely his voice could have been de-aged, too?

Another major plus is John Williams’ score. Anyone who feared they’d hire another composer with Spielberg and Lucas out of it can stop worrying. The film mixes old music with new, and the new music fits in with the series. Unfortunately, it isn’t terribly memorable, which means you won’t hear it and instantly connect it to this movie the way one does with the main themes from Raiders or Crusade. They also play the old music a LOT, as though desperate to remind us we are watching Indiana Jones.

Which we could be forgiven for occasionally forgetting. Part of the charm of the first three films is that Indy is ageless. 39 at the time he filmed Raiders, Harrison Ford could have been playing Indy as 30 at the time, or 40. Or older. We couldn’t really tell and that was part of what we liked. Young enough to still be vigorous, but old enough for a healthy skepticism and a been-there-done-that mentality. Any jokes of that nature were largely directed at his experience, not his age. That is an important distinction. An adversary, when told a relic they are battling over belongs in a museum, tells Indy, “So do you!” When his father is trying to adjust to people trying to kill him and says it’s a new experience, Indy replies, “Really? Happens to me all the time!” And so forth. It isn’t about his age, it is about how often he has been in similar [dangerous] situations. As I said, an important distinction. Even in the fourth film, the jokes were few and mostly early in the film, when Indy is getting his sea legs back, as it were. After which, he is just fine. And Ford, through a combination of makeup and acting, did a great job in that film, appearing old and tired in early scenes, and younger and more into it later. Marion and Mutt have faith in him, WE have faith in him, in large part because we know Indy has faith in himself again.

Here that isn’t necessarily true. There is an appalling number of ageist jokes and other moments, as Indiana surpasses his father in droves as the crotchety old man who finds everything intolerable. While he may start experiencing that joy somewhere along the line, there is no indication he really has faith in himself, nor does anyone around him seem to.

One such person in his sphere is his goddaughter, Helena, the daughter of an old friend and fellow archeologist (played by Toby Jones) whom we meet in the teaser. The daughter is played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, the creator and star of Fleabag and the writer and producer of Killing Eve, both multi-award-winning shows. And Waller-Bridge runs away with this movie. Indy becomes Helena’s sidekick, rather than the other way around, and one might think the filmmakers are setting her up for future movies. As a character, Helena isn’t terribly likable, at least to start. She doesn’t have the ethics Indy has or the healthy respect for the relics she handles. In that sense, she is like Elsa in Crusade. She is also something of a loudmouth, and constantly mocks Indy. She grates in the way that Willie does in Temple, though not for comedic purposes. She also seems to lack any real affection for Indy, her godfather, though she clearly was as a child. But then the point is obvious: the character arc and development is built around her, not so much around Indy. She does have a clear arc and resolution. And Waller-Bridge plays Helena’s cynicism, her mockery, and her bitterness to near perfection, as well as her resolution as a character. And through it all, the camera loves her.

As a relic, the Dial of Destiny isn’t much touched on, serving more as a McGuffin than a real threat. And unlike the Ark, the Cup of Christ, or even the Stones in Temple of Doom, we don’t get a sense of what the Dial really is, its power, or its threat, until the final act, and then we’re cheated out of any WOW factor. To put it differently, the film doesn’t really offer us breadcrumbs that let us know to expect something spectacular and awful for daring to use the relic, no sense of power let loose, and there is no denouement or repercussions to speak of once we’re at that point. Because of this, we don’t feel there is much at stake. We are told there is, but we don’t feel it. We aren’t shown. Especially ending that plot, before going to the epilogue. Indy’s own malaise and the resolution are just rushed, like an afterthought. Like the original ending of The Abyss, we feel something was filmed and cut out. Whether that is true here or not, it’s how it feels.

The real problem with the movie, however, is in how Indy’s life has just gone to crap. They played around with this a little bit in Crystal Skull, but quickly moved past it. Does anyone remember the beginning of Ghostbusters II, where the writers nearly ruined the first movie for us, by having horrible consequences for their heroic acts? That is sort of how I felt here. After the teaser, it is the present day. Summer of 1969, after the Apollo 11 Mission. [And in a nod to that event, one scene, a chase scene on a horse through the ticker tape parade for the astronauts, Indy does a double take as he passes the vehicle with the astronauts and yes, it is funny.]

But the present day begins in a terrible way. Indy is once more alone. Marion has left him and his son Mutt is gone. Indiana is no longer working at the university where he worked for so many decades (and where, when we last saw, he was now Dean of Students), and the current college where he has been working for the last few years is forcing him into retirement. He’s a has-been, and there is nobody in his life to even mark his slide into old age. That the writers felt they had to create such a dismal and extreme present day for him, to give him something to come back from, is a sign of weak writing. They couldn’t do something more subtle and that’s a shame, especially when they then throw constant ageism references our way. Indy never really stands a chance. It makes the viewer wish they’d just left it alone after Marion and Indy’s wedding, and his reunion with his son. And what is worse, having given him reasons for his current condition, they don’t bother to explore it. It just is. In addition, early on, Indy and Helena become murder suspects, worsening his overall situation. [A problem that is never mentioned again; in the epilogue, we’re to assume, one supposes, that it’s all magically cleared up, despite all witnesses to the murders being dead.]

This film was supposed to give us closure in a way that Ford, Spielberg, and Lucas (and presumably fans) had not felt Crystal Skull delivered, because I guess riding off into the sunset with the love of your life and your son isn’t good enough. As such, the filmmakers try to throw in as many cameos as possible, where they can make them believable. We get to say hello to Sallah, whom Indy had helped immigrate to the US during WWII and for years has been a cabbie, still full of love of life (though Rhys-Davies looks terrible). Marion does get her cameo, and Karen Allen looks terrific. We do get a playful reference or two to Indy’s father, though I saw none for Marcus Brody. The main one missing that fans likely wanted to see is Short Round, but I assume they couldn’t find a realistic way to bring him in. What a shame, as Ke Huy Quan could have capitalized still more after the success of Everything Everywhere All At Once. As for Mutt, if the filmmakers didn’t want Shia LaBeouf if this film (and he was pretty good in the last one, made before his Troubles began), they could have recast the role, but what they did to Mutt was nearly unforgivable. There was room for him in this film, and all they did was just crap on poor Indy all the more.

This review makes it sound like I hated this movie. Some critics did, to be sure; it’s a risk when follow-ups are done years or decades later. But the reality is, while not on the level of the first and third movies in quality, it was still quite fun and it did have more than its share of plusses.

Waller-Bridge, as mentioned, was very good. As was Harrison Ford, whom I’m guessing would disagree with much of what I’ve said, as he was consulted about the storyline. The cameos were lovely, even if I had hoped they’d both have more screen time. [For her part, Allen has stated that Spielberg’s version would have given her more, but that she’s grateful for what she got and another opportunity to work with Ford, however brief.] I’m one of the people who wish Short Round could have been in it, but in a nod to the memory of him, they did give us another boy, slightly older than Short Round, who accompanies Helena—and in turn Indy—on their journey. Two other actors are worth mentioning, as well. Mads Mikkelsen is good in this movie, though his [chief villain] character isn’t terribly well-developed. He is more of a cartoon character, but Mikkelsen is still good, despite that. The other is Antonio Banderas, who has a brief role as an old friend of Indy’s, and Banderas, even as grizzled as he is in this, and in such a small role, still has great charisma.

The filming locations were great, as they nearly always have been. The cinematography was good, the production design was excellent, and they paid some attention to tying this film together with the canon of old. Perhaps never so strongly as when Indy rides horseback to flee the bad guys, in the middle of a New York parade. It is silly but fun; even the horse seems to be enjoying himself. There’s another chase scene on a motor rickshaw through Tangiers, that like all chase scenes these days, is too long, but is fun for a while, and reminiscent of the motorcycle chase in Last Crusade. Indy gives a vague reference to his past “where he has seen some things” though he doesn’t go into detail, given that stuff was top secret. The hat and the whip are characters on their own, perhaps referenced a little TOO much throughout the film. And constant references that I’ve already mentioned, that are nods to situations or people in the former films. And they added some cool new things, including an underwater dive and a flight scene toward the end. Unfortunately for the former, they never really show their faces, which helps ruin the effect, and in the latter, there is no follow-through or resolution, as mentioned above in the Dial paragraph.

Two final thoughts.

First, Temple takes place in 1935, Raiders in 1936, and Last Crusade in 1938, a period covering just three years. Indy is presumably around 40, give or take. Now it is 30 years later, placing him at 70 years of age, though Ford simply can no longer pass for 70, despite maintaining an active lifestyle. They should have set the film slightly later. And on that…

Second, I’ve long thought that maybe the Indiana Jones stories are just better set in the 30s and 40s; it is as much about atmosphere as the political background of the times. Crystal Skull takes place in 1957, where we find out Indy was a Cold War spy for a while, and that was silly. This film takes place in 1969, in the midst of Vietnam protests, major civil rights strife, and hippiedom. And the new technology of space travel, against which the horse is juxtaposed as old-school. It isn’t just that the character is like a fish out of water. It’s that the whole concept of Indiana Jones in the modern era seems off somehow. It is one thing fighting Nazis, which he spent so much of his career doing. And in Crystal Skull, fighting the Soviets. Both these things were actual threats. But in this film, the political background is just that. Background. And it doesn’t necessarily ring true. I think it a shame, if they wanted more stories, they didn’t do them decades ago, where Indy could have been in the world he was meant to be in.

This movie is worth seeing. As I said, I’d probably place this in the middle of the five. We’ll see. But it isn’t without its problems.

From a quality standpoint, I’d give the film a solid three stars (out of five). From an enjoyment, probably four stars out of five. Maybe only three and a half. Maybe four and a half. We’ll see.