Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny raids the old IP with big-budget chutzpah — review

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Can cosmetic surgery produce a catch-22? After all, work on a face must sometimes be so perfectly unobtrusive, the years vanish seemingly by magic. But then, of course, all anyone who knows the patient does is stare. You get the same feeling watching Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, reportedly the last adventure for the death-defying archaeologist. Naturally, he is played by Harrison Ford. And yet in a prologue, the actor, 80, passes through the miracle of digital de-ageing. The sequence plays like a lost extract from Raiders of the Lost Ark: Jones in a fix with thin-lipped Nazis, Ford flawlessly restored to 1981.

Like the pristine facelift, the result becomes hard to look past despite all the surrounding hubbub: thrills and spills on a German plunder train. Steaming ahead, a dilemma takes shape not just around the de-ageing but the movie itself. Technology can now seamlessly reanimate the Ford of 40 years ago. Likewise, the actor agreeing to return makes the whole project possible. But an old, old question nags in both cases. Just because we can, should we really? Again?

Still, the story mirrors with no small skill the same pining for the past that greenlit the film. After that flashback overture, we shuttle forward to 1969. Apollo 11 is due on the Moon; a creaking Indy is earthbound, alone in New York and a fug of regret. Retiring from teaching, he receives a gold clock. 

The star growls, of course. (By now, his line readings extend from muttered scowls to scowling mutters.) But the gift is a nice thematic touch. The plot will turn on another glinting timepiece, crafted by Archimedes. It also draws forth the co-stars. One is Mads Mikkelsen, playing a former Nazi physicist. The other is Phoebe Waller-Bridge, cast as Jones’s zippy English goddaughter. The leap here from the all-conquering Fleabag could go either way. Waller-Bridge just nervelessly proceeds, as if she has stepped out of something by Noël Coward. 

Generally, risk-taking is at a premium here. But making Waller-Bridge an action star is not quite the only one. The running time is filled with stunty set pieces. (Tuk-tuk dodgems in Tangier; a Jawsy episode at sea.) But the best comes early, Ford dropped into a lavish scene of New York madness, the streets thronged with anti-Vietnam protesters and a ticker-tape parade. Here at least, it would take a churl not to smile at the sheer big-budget chutzpah. (The film is reported to have cost $295mn.) 

And yet. So many times thereafter when the mood should be giddy, it feels laboured, weighed down by the movies that came before. You suspect part of director James Mangold would like simply to be making a daffy picture about an unknown ageing archaeologist, not a prize intellectual property. But in 2023, who would let him do that?

Meanwhile, Ford clearly wants to say goodbye gracefully. The film duly gives him flashes of dramatic heft: evocations of loss and bad life choices, as if to put flesh on the peevish shtick and give this anxious movie a reason to be beyond the cash. After one frantic episode, Waller-Bridge bemoans his sullen air. “My friend was just murdered,” Ford replies, and a strange reality fleetingly enters the guilt-free summer blockbuster. 

It must also be said that the exchange comes en route to high jinks in the mystical Cave of Dionysius, before a misjudged honk of a fantastical third act. Ford’s gravity is admirable: it just never joins up with the rest of the film. In the end, you side with Waller-Bridge. Her insta-screwball energy channels the past. She also keeps the door ajar to the future.

★★★☆☆

In cinemas from June 30