Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is a better film than it had any right to be, and a lesser film than the character deserved. James Mangold, taking over from Steven Spielberg for the first time in the franchise's history, brings a genuine seriousness of purpose to the material and a clear understanding of what makes Indiana Jones worth caring about. The result is a film that is too long, too reliant on CGI, and structurally uneven, but that also contains some of the most emotionally resonant moments in the entire series. It is a flawed farewell, but it is a farewell that takes its subject seriously, and that alone puts it considerably ahead of Crystal Skull.
At a Glance
Director: James Mangold
Runtime: 154 minutes
Starring: Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelsen, Antonio Banderas, John Rhys-Davies
Release: 2023
Critics Rating: ★★★ (3/5 stars, a flawed but sincere farewell)
Audience Rating: ★★★ (3/5 stars, better than Crystal Skull)
Review Breakdown
Plot
Set in 1969, the film finds a retired and visibly diminished Indiana Jones drawn back into adventure by his goddaughter Helena Shaw, who is searching for the Antikythera mechanism, a device created by Archimedes that may be capable of locating fissures in time. The villain, a former Nazi scientist named Voller who has been absorbed into NASA's space programme, wants to use the device to travel back in time and alter the outcome of the Second World War. The plot is more ambitious than Crystal Skull's and more coherent in its MacGuffin, with the time travel element rooted in genuine historical mythology rather than alien intervention. The film's structural problem is its length: at 154 minutes, it is the longest entry in the franchise and the one that most clearly feels it. The middle act, set largely in Morocco, loses momentum significantly, and the film takes too long to reach a climax that, when it arrives, is genuinely surprising and genuinely moving. The de-aged prologue, set in 1944, is technically impressive but runs longer than necessary and establishes a visual register that the rest of the film cannot consistently match.
Characters
Harrison Ford gives his finest Indiana Jones performance since Raiders, and possibly his finest performance in any franchise film. The film is honest about Indy's age and his diminishment in ways that Crystal Skull was not, and Ford honours that honesty with a performance of genuine vulnerability and quiet dignity. The scene in which Indy, stranded in ancient Syracuse, decides he wants to stay is the most emotionally complex moment in the franchise's history, and Ford plays it with a restraint and a depth that makes it genuinely affecting. Phoebe Waller-Bridge's Helena Shaw is the film's most divisive element. She is written as a morally ambiguous, self-interested operator, and Waller-Bridge plays her with considerable wit and energy. Whether she is a worthy successor to Marion Ravenwood is a matter of genuine debate; she is certainly a more interesting character than Mutt Williams, and her dynamic with Ford has a genuine friction and warmth. Mads Mikkelsen's Voller is a more psychologically coherent villain than Irina Spalko, a true believer whose fanaticism is rooted in a comprehensible if monstrous logic.
Tone
Mangold pitches the film as an elegiac adventure, a story about ageing, loss, and the difficulty of finding a reason to keep going when the things that defined you have been taken away. This is a more melancholy register than the franchise has previously attempted, and it does not always sit comfortably alongside the film's more conventional action sequences. The tonal inconsistency is real: the Morocco sequences feel like a different and less interesting film than the quieter, more character-focused scenes that surround them. But when the film commits to its elegiac ambitions, it achieves something genuinely moving, and the final act is the most emotionally satisfying conclusion the franchise has produced since Last Crusade.
Meaning / Themes
Dial of Destiny is a film about the relationship between the past and the present, about the temptation to retreat into a time when things were simpler and the necessity of remaining in the world as it is. Voller's desire to return to 1939 and correct history is presented as a form of madness rooted in genuine grief, and the film is sophisticated enough to acknowledge the appeal of that impulse before rejecting it. Indy's own temptation to stay in ancient Syracuse is the film's most honest moment: a man who has spent his life in the past finally confronting the cost of that obsession. The film's conclusion, in which he chooses the present, is earned by the quality of the emotional work that precedes it.
Casting
Ford is exceptional and deserves enormous credit for a performance that required genuine emotional courage. Waller-Bridge is a genuine asset, even if the character is not always well-served by the script. Mikkelsen brings his customary intelligence and intensity to Voller. Antonio Banderas is almost entirely wasted in a role that amounts to a single extended cameo. John Rhys-Davies' brief return as Sallah is the film's most purely sentimental moment, and it works precisely because Rhys-Davies and Ford have the history to make it feel genuinely earned rather than merely nostalgic.
Direction
Mangold's direction is more assured in the film's quieter scenes than in its action sequences, which rely on digital effects that are occasionally impressive and occasionally unconvincing. The de-aged prologue is a technical achievement that demonstrates how far the technology has come while also demonstrating its remaining limitations. The Sicilian tuk-tuk chase is the film's most purely enjoyable action sequence, with a practical energy that recalls the original trilogy. The underwater sequences are less successful, and the film's climax, while emotionally satisfying, is visually chaotic in ways that undercut its dramatic impact. John Williams' final score for the franchise is a fitting farewell, drawing on the series' full musical history while finding new emotional registers for Indy's final chapter.
Who Should Watch
Essential viewing for Indiana Jones fans, particularly those who found Crystal Skull a disappointment. Dial of Destiny is a more honest and more emotionally ambitious film, and Harrison Ford's performance alone makes it worth seeing. Those who approach it as a farewell rather than an adventure will find considerably more to appreciate. Its flaws are real and its length is a genuine problem, but the film's emotional intelligence and the quality of its central performance make it a worthy, if imperfect, conclusion to one of cinema's great adventure series.
Final Verdict: A flawed but genuinely moving farewell to one of cinema's great characters. Harrison Ford gives his finest franchise performance, James Mangold brings a seriousness of purpose that the series needed, and the film's final act achieves an emotional resonance that Crystal Skull never approached. The 154-minute runtime is unjustified, the Morocco sequences lose momentum, and the CGI is inconsistent. But Dial of Destiny takes Indiana Jones seriously as a character rather than a franchise asset, and that respect for the material makes it, despite its imperfections, a conclusion worth having.
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