THE FOLLOWING REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS OF THE DISCUSSED FILM. READERS DISCRETION IS ADVISED.
When an era ends, some people would mistake it to be a bad thing because a period of good thing is over. To me, I see them as bittersweet because it lets us appreciate the past more than we already have. This feeling couldn't be anymore clear after watching Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
PLOT
The 2023 film takes place in 1969 and follows archaeologist Henry Jones Junior about to retire teaching in Hunter College. He has hit rockbottom as his wife Marion (Karen Allen) has filed for divorce after the loss of their son Henry III/Mutt. On his last day in class, he gets a visit from his goddaughter Helena 'Wombat' Shaw, daughter of late archaeologist and friend to Indy, Basil (Toby Jones). She reaches out to him to discuss of the Archimedes' Dial, a mechanism once built by mathematician Archimedes. Back in 1944, the two retrieved half of the Dial from Nazis but after this, Basil was driven mad and became obsessed with looking for the other half until he died. Because of this, Indy is against her doing the same. When he shows her the half he kept, they get chased by CIA Agent Mason (Shaunette Renee Wilson) and two accomplices that personally work for Nazi astrophysicist turned NASA scientist Jurgen Voller, Klaber & Hauke (Olivier Ritchers). Helena takes the half for herself as she is wanted for past actions as an antiquities smuggler. While she gets away, Jones gets falsely accused for murdering his former coworkers on campus, in which Klaber & Hauke are actually responsible for. After escaping from their clutches, he goes into hiding with the assist of his oldest friend Sallah, who emigrated into the US during WWII. Based on his knowledge, he confirms his goddaughter will sell half of the dial in an auction in Tangier. Despite being wanted for murder, he still goes there to get the dial. By the time he makes it to the auction, he encounters Voller who he took the dial from in '44. The latter gets it first and tries to gun him down, but he escapes with Wombat and her young friend Teddy Kumar. In the midst, they avoid being captured by gangster Aziz Rahim (Alaa Safi), who Helena was once engaged with. Mason would intercept Voller for standing up the US President and making a mess for going rogue. However, the Nazi chooses to move forward with getting the other half by killing her. Indy, Wombat & Teddy then go to Greece to reach out to another old friend of Jones named Renaldo, a sea diver willing to help them retrieve the Grafikos tablet containing coordinates of the second half. They do find it when diving into the Aegean Sea and overcoming a swarm of eels but get intercepted by Voller again. He kills Renaldo and his diving team for it, but the protagonist trio still escape with the tablet. The coordinates direct them to the Ear of Dionysius in Sicily. Shortly before entering the cavern, Voller's group abducts Teddy. Indy & Helena reach the tomb of Archimedes and find the dial's second half, but are stunned to see his corpse wear a 20th century confirming the mechanism is capable of traveling through time. Voller arrives with Klaber and demands the other half. He takes what he wants once Klaber shoots Indy in the chest and takes him captive. After Teddy separates himself from the Nazis by causing Hauke to drown, he and Helena are able to escape the cavern but secretly follow Voller to rescue Jones. They follow them to an airport and it is there Voller reassembles the dial, telling his plan to Indy: With his own set of coordinates, he plans to kill Adolf Hitler in 1939 and lead the Nazis to victory in WWII. Helena stows away in Voller's plane while Teddy flies in another. As Voller flies toward a time fissure in the sky, Indy points out the coordinates would not match based on the continental drift. Instead of 1939 Germany, all find themselves in 212 BC's Siege of Syracuse. While Teddy avoids the chaos and lands safely. Voller's plane gets shot down by both warring armies. Luckily, Indy & Wombat escape via parachute before the plane crashes. Upon the crash however, Archimedes himself comes across Voller's corpse, taking his watch and the dial, giving the latter to Jones. As he and Wombat meet him, they realize he made the mechanism in the first place to invite people from the future to assist them against the Roman forces. Indy considers staying behind, believing he has nothing to go back to, but Helena knocks him unconscious to bring him back home before the fissure collapses. When Indy wakes up, he is back home in 1969 New York, apparently no longer falsely accused of murder. The film ends with him reconciling with Marion.
THOUGHTS
I always knew another Indiana Jones film would emerge once Lucasfilm was purchased by Walt Disney. Because of Star Wars being a central focus at the time, the wait would be longer but worth waiting. 15 years later apart from the previous entry and I had the same feeling I had in my childhood which is all I wanted going into it. It’s big shoes to fill when concluding a legacy left behind by George Lucas & Steven Spielberg, but James Mangold held the fort well without breaking it in the directors chair. Phedon Papamichael's cinematography and the editing by Andrew Buckland, Michael McCusker & Dirk Westervelt was so well done it made every action/chase sequence incredible to witness. And you must always expect an epic score from the legendary John Williams, which is exactly what he provides here.My favorite of the bunch was hands down the Tangier tuktuk chase. The production design was so deafening because every set piece was so reminiscent of the past. For at least a second, it felt like I was at the moon day parade. Even the 360 view of the Ear of Dionysius was breathtaking. Credit must also be given towards the visual effects because besides the de-aging looking great on Indy during the cold open, it was stunning to get a glimpse of the Siege of Syracuse. I never would've expected time travel to be part of this franchise's setting, but I have to accept anything is possible when past entries involved religion and extraterrestrials. The concept of it was very unique where the coordinates must include the factor of continental drift in order to go exactly where you want to. It was a big twist for Archimedes to have made the dial in the first place to turn the tide in the conflict against the Romans but a history showed, it didn't work out the way he wished. I think the presence of time travel was a great way to tell something deeper: As much as we would love to undo our flaws that define us, we have to remember there is always going to be an opportunity to get back up from the times we fall down. The message is clear when we follow one of the most iconic protagonists. We always loved Harrison Ford as Indy because we admired the joy he had in exploring the metaphorical past. So after the '44 cold open, you can guarantee how stunned I was to see him not having the call to adventure due to his recent tragedy making him emotionally vulnerable for the first time. This predicament would then have the adventure call to him instead. He didn't hesitate trying to protect Helena when she re-entered his life because she reminded him of himself enjoying living life freely and wasn't gonna bare the only person left he identified as family. Even though he enjoyed being with her when searching for the dial' second half, he felt like staying in Syracuse because he felt like he had nothing to go back to. You can't blame him for feeling such because he didn't how to tend to Marion after Mutt died since no parent can ever prepare for losing their child. Despite knowing where he was coming from, we knew he was wrong because there is always time to make things right, making it a relief to see him come back home. Seeing him grab his fedora at the very end was a bittersweet way to tell us two important things: Indy will live the rest of his life without regret and the adventures never end when you get older. Although Indy will always be the star of this franchise, there were still a handful of characters that caught my eye. Phoebe Waller Bridge had us instantly fall for Helena because she matched Indy's energy in being adventurous in whatever the environment. She would always be calm enough to compromise and find a way out of her pickle, just like her godfather would. She really proved her own fearlessness when it came to outsmarting Voller long enough to set up an escape. If you didn't think she matched his energy, you'll likely think she surpassed it. He meant the world to her because apart from better understanding her father, he appreciated her for what she was capable of. With that setting up their family bond, she wasn't gonna bare losing him either. She did the right thing bringing Jones back, even if it looked unwillingly on his end, because she understood as well it wasn't too late for him to patch things up. The second he opened up to her about his family falling apart, she knew he deserved a second chance, gladdening me she made that possible. If Indy really is done traveling around the world at this point in his life, you bet she'll continue to make more of her own adventures out of honor to him. There will never be another Short Round, but that doesn't mean not every kid would want to seek adventure. Ethann Isidore made the most of it for becoming braver than he'd realize when push come to shove. The kid enjoyed the thrill as much as Wombat did, hence getting along so well. He gets into situations he never intended, yet improvises long enough to overcome them. The proof is when he kills Hauke and flies into a time fissure to save Indy. Any of Indy's friends could've done the same, but you gotta respect the kid for actually doing it. When it comes to Indy's rogue of friends, I'm sure general fans will agree no one will the top the impact made by John Rhys Davies as Sallah. While it was great to see him again, you can't take away the presence of Antonio Banderas as Renaldo. In his given time, he made the best out of it in being a resourceful friend to Jones going out of his way to take him to the Aegean Sea. He even took loyalty to the extreme when dying for his friend, sharing the same beliefs. I'm sure Sallah would have done the same, but it doesn't undo the boldness Renaldo chose to act on in his final breath. Many villains come and go but that doesn't mean they don't always make an impact, which is indeed the case for Voller. Mads Mikkelsen owns it in making the character a cold individual who had goals meant to satisfy only himself, a resemblance you can argue would match Belloq. I would've not expected a Nazi take the use of time travel to take Hitler's place in leading Germany to victory, which comes to show some dreams are too big to achieve. He was in over his head like Donovan because he doesn't think of the worst possible outcome. This is ironic because he should've known the continental drift would've been a factor when using the dial. Had he put more thought into how to use it, he would've gotten what he wanted. On a side note, Boyd Holbrook was definitely intimidating as Klaber. The man was devoted to Voller’s cause and was so crazy to think he could get away with anything. He’s the ideal Neo Nazi because he truly believes one way is the only way, which bites him big time when he and Voller share a demise. I had such a blast watching this, but it didn’t excuse some issues I caught onto upon rewatching. For instance, why would Indy change in the middle of escaping, it’s one thing to have time but you’re testing the waters when escaping Nazis. If that didn’t define luck, then Voller surviving being struck by a pipe while hanging on a train will do it. Looking back, why didn’t Indy take the dial to the government? If he didn’t want it in the wrong hands, this would’ve been a safer bet. And am I the only one wondering how Sallah knows about the auction? It’s good that he does know in order for Indy to move forward, but it’s so odd for him to know something so specific compared to the past. It was funny that Indy bringing a whip to a gunfight backfired, but wasn’t it odd nobody really aimed at the table when he ducked? I mean it’s like they gave him a chance in escaping with low effort. I then think about how come Indy didn’t try reaching out to the government to undo Mutt’s draft? After everything he’s done at that point, it would’ve not hurt trying. And lastly, was there really a point for Voller to take Indy with him? I know we’re supposed to know his intent with the dial through him, but it felt pointless on his end if you ask me. Ignore this, then you’ll still enjoy this film for what it is. In conclusion. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is a satisfying adventure film for taking unexpected turns that make adventure films unforgettable. If the Indiana Jones films are what made you love movies, I assure you would enjoy this movie as well.
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