In the first few minutes of 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark, we watch an obscured Indiana Jones expertly amble through the jungle without ever seeing his face. The fedora, the leather jacket, the whip — it's all there, building up the iconography of a larger-than-life character before Harrison Ford claims the globe-trotting archeologist as his own.
It's a point worth remembering when sitting down for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the fifth and purportedly final film in the 42-year-old franchise: Steven Spielberg and George Lucas dreamed up a cartoonish adventurer inspired by the pulpy serials of their childhoods. Indiana Jones was always an artifact of another time, and the half-serious, half-joking performances Harrison Ford pulls off with dazzling, movie-star aplomb just don't happen anymore. The Marvel movies try to approximate that hero-as-a-symbol allure, but no big-budget lead holds a smirk so well as Harrison Ford these days. We're all in the shadow of Indy — the fedora, the leather jacket and the whip.
That's why the breathless Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is both well worth the watch and an ultimately fruitless exercise. It's a much better send-off for the character than the 2008 misfire Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Director James Mangold—the first filmmaker outside of Spielberg to helm an Indy installment—knows a thing or two about sunsetting a beloved character. His Logan (2017) is considered the definitive goodbye for Hugh Jackman's Wolverine after years of poorly-received X-Men movies.
In Dial of Destiny, Ford's age (he'll be 81 this summer) provides a compelling new footing for the dogged Indy, whose decades-long character arc culminates in a fairly satisfying way. Plus, the nostalgia nods really aren't ham-fisted, and the final act is surprisingly bold. But, much as Disney might try, there's no one to take up Ford's mantle — not even his new co-star, the Golden Globe-winning Phoebe Waller-Bridge (Fleabag).
The movie opens with a digitally de-aged Indy battling (you guessed it) Nazis in 1945, in the moments after the Allied victory. There are limits to our current nostalgia boom and the de-aging tech that will no doubt perpetuate it, but the action feels true to the original trilogy. Indy slips out of a Nazi stronghold with all the customary wisecracks and visual gags that make the heart just a little lighter. It's not Sean Connery accidentally lighting a German castle on fire in 1989's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, but it'll do. Toby Jones is a sort of Marcus Brody stand-in as Indy's bumbling academic sidekick Basil Shaw.
We cut to 1969, where we find our erstwhile hero slumped in front of the TV with no shirt on as the clock ticks away beside him. It's on-the-nose, yes, but also strangely arresting to see an aged action star as closely as we see Ford in this moment — even if he does look amazing. The film's more clever construction, however, is Indy's place in history. The moon landing is being celebrated in his new home of New York City just as he teaches his last-ever class as an archeology professor. The times call for progress by looking toward space, beyond human history. No use digging up artifacts here on earth.
That's when Indy's goddaughter, the brilliant but decidedly mercenary Helena Shaw (Waller-Bridge) shows up looking for a dial built by the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes. Her father became obsessed with the mechanism after he and Indy stole it from Nazi physicist Jürgen Voller (the excellent Mads Mikkelson) back in '45, sparking the age-old question first posed in Raiders of the Lost Ark: Is the thing actually magical?
What follows is an exhausting, globe-trotting game of cat-and-mouse. Mikkelson's Dr. Voller wants to use the device to re-light the flame of Nazism. He and his henchmen (Boyd Holbrook, future Justified: City Primeval villain, among them) track Indy, Helena and her pickpocket young friend Teddy (newcomer Ethann Isidore) through Tangier, Greece and Sicily. It's a drawn-out chase with a few fun twists and turns, but video game-ey visuals feel weightless compared to the delightfully campy practical effects of Spielberg's original trilogy.
Thankfully, though, the third act of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is something special. In classic Indy style, Ford and Mikkelson measure their wits against one another. Dr. Henry Jones, Jr. is, first and foremost, a colossal nerd. And a well-written script puts a satisfying cap on Harrison Ford's storied run as the whip-wielding archeologist — that is, if it's really the end. You never do know in the IP era.
One thing, however, is certain: There's no more juice to be had from the Indiana Jones orange without its leading man. Moreso than Spielberg's touch, Harrison Ford's brusque panache jumpstarts the whimsy of the franchise each go-around. The fedora, the leather jacket and the whip — symbols of the last great movie star.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is now playing in theaters everywhere.
