In Review: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

Synopsis: In The Dial of Destiny, Archaeologist Indiana Jones races against time to retrieve a legendary artifact that can change the course of history.

The Story

On his final day of teaching Archeology. Indi gets approached by his God Daughter Helena who manipulates him into helping her search for an ancient relic known as the Antikythera, which is a numeric dial that was created by Archimedes. In the story, we learn that Helena’s father Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) was obsessed with the artifact and theorized that it could find fissures in time. Seemingly, Basil is not the only person with this theory because Nazi archeologist Dr. Voller has also heard the theory and wants to get hold of the Antikyhera for his own nefarious ends. So what starts out as a simple mission to find the other half of the relic turns into a race against time.

The Acting

Harrison Ford puts on his fedora for the last time and manages to go out with a fairly good movie. In this final story, Dr. Henry Jones aka Indiana has become somewhat more of a tragic character having lost his Son to the Vietnam War and also divorced from his wife. Ford does a good job of portraying those aspects of the character and does get a little opportunity in the movie to delve a bit deeper into it.

Phoebe Waller-Bridge character of Helena Shaw is the person that gets Indi out of his slump and pretty much manipulates him into this last adventure to find the Antikthera. Helena’s plan is to sell the Antithera to the highest bidder. Yes, Helena is a rather duplicitous character and not immediately likable.

The villain of the piece is Dr. Voller who is played by the brilliant Mads Mikkelsen. Dr. Voller is basically an old Nazi Archeologist who Indiana came up against during the tail end of the Second World War when he recovered the first half of the Antikythera from a horde of antiquities that the Nazis had stolen.

Helping to round out the cast are the returning characters of Sallah and Marion, who are once again played by John Rhys-Davies and Karen Allen. These two actors and their characters get criminally underused in the movie. As a long-time fan of these films, I was looking forward to seeing Sallah again and hoping to see him have one last adventure with Indi. But sadly it does not happen. 

Overall

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is an okay film. It’s certainly not the best of the series. But it isn’t the worst either. I quite enjoyed the film and felt it was a fitting end for Harrison Ford’s time in the role. The backstory for the Antikythera was a fun one, but the fact that it is a relic that is capable of time travel felt a little over the top in the scheme of the film. Especially given that time travel has become somewhat of an overused trope of late.

The CGI de-aging of Indiana Jones at the start of the film was fairly good. I quite enjoyed that section of the movie as it brought back fond memories of the original trilogy. I also enjoyed how the previous movie adventures get cheeky little references throughout the film. Specifically, Indi complaining to Helena that he was made to drink the blood of Khali and such when climbing towards the end of the film. Also, the way in which Teddy gets captured somewhat mirrored how Marion got captured in the first movie.

Finally, I felt this was a fun addition to the Indiana Jones film series. It wasn’t a needed chapter, but it was a fun chapter and a fitting send-off for Harrison Ford’s interpretation of the character. Added to this the soundtrack is awesome.