28/06/23

Cineworld, Edinburgh

Steven Spielberg’s Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) was a near-perfect movie, a fast-paced action adventure that harked back to the classic serials of the 1940s. It made a huge profit off a comparatively low budget, so – inevitably – there were going to be sequels. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) may not have had the perfection of their whip-tight progenitor, but were decent enough efforts in their own right. And that’s probably where the whole enterprise should have ended. 2008’s The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was – to put it mildly – a major miscalculation, despite being helmed by the usually dependable Spielberg. For a very long time, there were vague rumours of a fifth outing which remained exactly that. Rumours.

After all, Harrison Ford was getting a bit long in the tooth, so… maybe not?

But now, directed by James Mangold, and written (mostly) by Jez Butterworth and his brother John Henry, everyone’s favourite archeologist is back in the game. When we reunite with him it’s via a flashback. It’s 1944, the Germans are rapidly losing the war and, thanks to the wonders of de-aging software, Indy looks like his former self. He’s working alongside his old pal Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) and the two of them are attempting to rescue an ancient antiquity, the Lance of Longinus, from a Nazi train packed with loot. Indy has just been taken prisoner, but needless to say, he’s soon free and wandering the length of the train, looking for the artefact. Also present is Dr Voller (the always excellent Mads Mikkelson), who has already decided the lance is a fake but has discovered instead, on the same train, the titular device (or at least half of it), built by Archimedes and capable of… well, that would be telling. A lengthy action set-piece ensues and it’s pretty good, serving as a promising opener.

But then we move to 1969. Mankind has just landed on the moon and Dr Jones is now earning a crust as a University lecturer, though his students seem much more interested in listening to rock music and smoking dope. Retirement beckons and it’s made very clear that Indy has lost his mojo. Then along comes his Goddaughter, Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), who is also very interested in the Dial of Destiny, but mostly because she plans to sell it to the highest bidder. To give her fair credit, Waller-Bridge gives the franchise a much-needed update, and she’s good on the smart-arse wisecracks, but I’m not sure I quite buy her as an adrenalin-powered action hero. Then again, if I can accept an eighty-year-old male in the role, maybe anything is possible.

The bad guys soon come a-calling and, what do you know, they’re being led by Dr Voller, who has his own unthinkable plans for Archimedes’ invention and won’t hesitate to carry them out. Indy and Helena team up and a game of cat and mouse ensues with some protracted chases. A lengthy sequence featuring Ford on horseback (or at least, his stunt double) is perhaps the film’s standout, but the problem here is that there are just too many of these pursuits. A really complicated one featuring our heroes in a tuk tuk definitely overstays its welcome.

There are frequent nods to those earlier films – some of which work, others which feel meh – and there’s a surprisingly touching scene when Indy tells Helena about what happened to his son and why he and Marion Crane (Karen Allen) are no longer an item. John Rhys-Davies shows up once again as Sallah, but is given very little to do here and, naturally, Helena has a keen young assistant in the shape of Teddy (Ethan Isadore), who seems able to turn his hand to most things, including at one point piloting a plane. As you do.

With a running time over two-and-a-half hours, it’s to Dial of Destiny’s credit that it never really runs out of steam and, if the final conceit is hard to swallow, well, this is a series that’s known for it’s supernatural reveals. (Just don’t overthink the space-time continuum stuff because, on reflection, much of it really doesn’t add up.) I leave feeling that I’ve been suitably entertained but, before I’ve even made the short walk home, I’ve thought of at least half a dozen questions that remain maddeningly unanswered.

So, this is far from the disaster I anticipated but, when held up against that brilliant opening shot of Raiders, it’s frankly not in the same league. I can’t help feeling that, now it’s out in the world, this particular treasure chest should be triple-locked and left in a quiet place to gather dust.

3.8 stars

Philip Caveney