REVIEW: INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY. "Indy's Absolutely, Positively Last Movie...Maybe."

I can always tell when I movie I've looked forward to seeing isn't quite up to par with what I'd hoped or expected. I start thinking up silly situations, alternate endings, even new titles. Here are some of my musings about the latest entry in the Indiana Jones franchise:

Indiana Jones and the Superfluous Sequel

Indiana Jones and the Pursuit of a Meaningful Plot

Everything Everywhere All With Indy

Each of these options provides a component to my overall assessment of this, the fifth installment, of Harrison Ford's career-spanning saga: It's a mediocre film with a flimsy plot and crammed with every possible distraction or visual effect necessary to cover-up many flaws, omissions and oversights.

First, we didn't need this final wrap-up: not a wrap-up, this wrap-up. Keep in mind that Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989) was purportedly the final chapter....until Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) arrived almost 20 years later. Granted, Harrison Ford, back for his insistently final turn as the archeology professor turned rogue adventurer, can't stop the clock and the passing of time, so it's likely this is the last time we'll see our Fedora-headed hero, at least portrayed by Ford. Ford has reportedly said Indiana Jones will never be seen on film after this, his last performance.

But never say never. I remember a sequel to Gone With the Wind called Scarlet that ran as a mini-series in 1994, starring Timothy Dalton as Rhett Butler and Joanne Whalley as Scarlet O'Hara. Remember that one? Hollywood financiers apparently smelled money with an older TV audience clamoring for more Rhett and Scarlet. No one watched. So I wouldn't be surprised if, someone in the future (maybe decades later or not even in our lifetime) might come up with the brilliant idea to resurrect Indiana Jones. We may never know. One thing is certain, though. Things change and movies often revisit characters, stories, genres that are popular with audiences.

The thing is, as a final "wrap-up," this movie leaves a lot to be desired. For instance, there isn't much tied to the other four films. Even Star Wars, for all the ups and downs and uneven results in the series, had a kind of cohesiveness that tied the series together. Here, we get an overlong prologue (almost 30 minutes) that is designed to take us back to the original movie, Raiders of the Lost Ark, in terms of time and place. Indy is still fighting the Nazi's and we're introduced to fellow archeologist Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) whose own story sets the action for what will later be Indy's final adventure.

But I kept wondering, after all the wait and all the type, this is the best Spielberg & Co. could come up with? There's a treasure trove of references, characters, situations that could have provided a more fitting wrap to Indiana's career and his story. I kept thinking maybe they needed one more revision of script. Instead, we're left with a stream of predictable chases and....

A thin plot: Indiana Jones is on a quest to retrieve the fabled Dial of Archimedes, an Antikythera mechanism built by the ancient mathematician/physicist considered to be the first analog computer and fabled to have the capacity to change time as we know it. Of course, an evil Nazi scientist named Jurgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) has been coveting the Dial since the Allied Liberation of Europe in 1944, when he first crossed paths with Indiana.

So the chase is on, the clock ticking so precisely that you can time the next race with your watch (or your phone, just don't pull it out mid-movie). Every expositional scene is punctuated every five-seven minutes, by extravagantly staged altercations and chases, or what I refer to as "plot-us interruptus." And every moment, every conversation (though short), every near escape on the run is cluttered with as much stuff as possible: smoke, fire, explosions, fast trains and tunnels; speeding cars, horses, motorcycles and airplanes are surrounded by diversions, obstacles and every possible scenario to prolong the outcome.

Of course, we can't have a good chase without the Indiana Jones theme, so about 2-3 minutes into each hot pursuit, we hear "Da Da Dum Dum, Da Da Dum, Da Da Dum Dum, Da Da Dum Dum Dum" (sing it with me now). I stopped counting after the 10th time these now iconic notes were played and started checking my watch to ascertain out how many more times we'd hear this - or variations of - stirring score. Seriously, you could set a timer to the sequencing of chat-chase-relax-chat-chase, and on and on. Or make a soft-boiled egg.

It's too bad that the plot revolves around the frantic acquisition of the Dial because there is so much more we could explore about Indy. It's now July1969 days after the US Moon Landing and a near-to-retiring Indiana Jones is at a low point in his life: his only son died in Vietnam and his wife Marion (Karen Allen from Raiders) has filed for divorce. Retirement and scotch seem to be the only viable options for Indiana, until his goddaughter Helena Shaw arrives to goad him into helping her retrieve the second half of the Dial and complete its reconstruction: her father, Basil Shaw, died thinking Indy had destroyed the half of the Dial they secured after their 1944 Liberation escapade.

Helena has ideas beyond her father's legacy, mostly involving money. She is a self-proclaimed capitalist looking to capitalize on Indy's sorrow, notes from father's archeological work, and the monetary opportunity at hand. The fact that Indiana is so easily drawn into this absurd quest by his goddaughter suggests he is either easily manipulated, hopelessly gullible, or in serious need of psychological help.

The plot unravels....er, unfolds, from here, with Indiana and Helena alternating sabotaging each or or joining forces, to secure the complementary half of Archimedes' Dial, traveling from New York to Morocco to the Aegean to Syracuse (Sicily, not Upstate NY) and home again, combatting subversive US agents, Nazi sympathizers, poisonous fish, deadly snakes and Middle Eastern mobsters in the process. It is an exhausting, if not compelling journey, one that has little humor (per Raiders), a lot of noise, and almost no purpose other than extending the film's running time.

Even the one (yes, one) humorous line becomes a throwaway. When a captured Indiana is forced onto Voller's plane to travel back in time (so that Voller can assassinate Hitler and change the outcome of World War II), Voller smirks and tells him to fasten his seatbelt because, in the words of Bette Davis, "It's going to be a bumpy ride." Indy mutters, "He's German....no sense of humor."

We are clearly in different space culturally right now than1981. Even Ford has said the classic scene in Raiders where Indy watches an Arab perform various tricks with a sword before pulling out his gun and shooting him point-blank would not be allowed today. However, Indiana Jones had a certain wit, a sometimes cynical, yet endearing kind of academic self-deprecation that gave the character a layer of depth and humor. What happened to that Indiana Jones? He's not in this movie.

Later in the chase, when Indy and Helena briefly escape Voller's clutches and race to retrieve the missing Dial piece from Archimedes' tomb, an elaborate labyrinthian cave in Sicily, the appearance of snakes crawling out of the cavern walls could be played to great affect, given Indy's aversion to the unexpected reptilians. Instead, he just looks mildly spooked and moves quickly through the tunnels.

A similar missed opportunity follows almost immediately after when Indy and Helena uncover Archimedes' skeleton, an unlikely occurrence to begin with, but apparently necessary here to move the plot forward. All I could imagine when they pull back the dusty sheets and see the skeleton is what Mel Brooks or Monty Python might have done with that moment. A smiling skeleton? Another artifact of interest to Indy? Something to connect us to another Indiana Jones movie? Nope. Nothing, just a watch, which makes Indy and Helena jump to the conclusion that time travel must be possible using the Dial.

But....I'm thinking, since it was so easy for them to reach Archimedes' skeleton, might the watch have been planted by someone else? There are endless possibilities to consider here, but we are left to follow the original plot. No deviation. No jokes. No surprises.

Harrison Ford, in the movie's titular role, reportedly wanted one final story to give fans a "conclusive ending" to the Indiana Jones saga. He's fine here, per usual, bringing his familiar world-weariness and quiet self-deprecation to an otherwise ordinary film. But his performance is flat overall, uninspired. And the supporting cast, including Phoebe Waller-Bridge as Indy's goddaughter Helena, don't really do much other than play out the storyline in perfunctory fashion.

In the pivotal part of Helena, the driving force behind Indy's return for one last adventure, Waller-Bridge is underwhelming as his smart, if devious, goddaughter, embodying all of his friend Basil's intelligence but none of his ethics or dedication. Part of the problem here is the casting of Waller-Bridge, who doesn't seem to convey the conflicted Helena is ways that are either cutthroat or compelling. Paraphrasing one critic, "It's like getting Olivia de Havilland when what you really need Barbara Stanwyck." Helena is out for money and comes on as deservedly untrustworthy and ruthless, yet her affection for an enterprising Moroccan youth named Teddy whom she takes under her wing, seems as implausible as her sudden affection for Indy near the film's end. Nothing awful, but nothing plausible, either.

The small, almost-cameo performance from the usually engaging Antonio Banderas as Indy's friend and expert frogman Renaldo, is similarly wasted as a throwaway part that could have been played by almost any working actor. It's not that Banderas is bad - he just doesn't have much in terms of character development or screen time to make a difference. And, the way his scenes are shot (at a distance or underwater), it's nearly impossible to recognize him facially so to appreciate his presence on screen. Wasted use of a fine and charismatic actor.

The other actors don't fare much better. The always reliable Toby Jones gets the thankless role of a stereotypical academic geek, Indy's much less interesting but arguably more intelligent colleague, and is reduced to being frightened, out of his element or both. His original heroism securing the Dial seems purely accidental.

Mads Mikkelsen is appropriately stoic, though his constant deadpan expression and sense of purpose make him about as one-dimensional a villain as you might imagine. Remember Alan Rickman, so deliciously naughty as the Sheriff of Nottingham in 1991's Robin Hood Prince of Thieves that he was more appealing than Kevin Costner's fair-haired hero? It would have been nice to have Voller display some weakness, some flaw or vice that would have given him more personality and made the movie more fun to watch.

Which brings me to the long-awaited climax, one that takes Indy and Voller back in time (yes, Archimedes' Dial apparently works), but not to where Voller expects. In typical bumbling Nazi fashion (well, as Americans might see it), Voller miscalculates his coordinates and winds up at the Battle of Syracuse (212 BC), not 1939 Munich. You can probably figure out his fate, but then Indy - finally witnessing the history he has so passionately studied all his life - isn't sure whether he wants to return to his own time.

Again, I could only daydream about what Mel Brooks or Monty Python would have done with this material: maybe a chorus of Roman soldiers line dancing through the siege, or a wisecracking Archimedes more in tune w/20th century humor than his own? But something, anything to lighten up director James Mangold's super-serious, heavily earnest approach to storytelling.

This final scene at Syracuse (well, before the "epilogue") could have been the impetus for a much more in-depth exploration of the Indiana Jones character, but it's mostly left as a plot device that leads to the movie's predictable denouement. Questions about time/place - and why we live in the era we are born into and whether it's the "right one - could have added the gravitas necessary to underscore Indiana Jones' love of history and archeology. He begins to move in that direction, but Mangold & Co. don't even scratch the surface with what might have been an epiphany for Indy and his life's work. I won't spoil what happens here for those who feel obligated to sit through this marathon homage to Harrison Ford, but suffice to say it wasn't worth waiting two hours and fifteen minutes to experience.

So, you must be wondering, with all this frenetic chaos swirling about, is Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny worth seeing? If you must. Is it entertaining? Yeah, but not in a way that would compel me to see it again. And I'm a great believer that a good movie is worth seeing more than once. It would take a lot for me to enter the Indiana Jones universe again.

If you're familiar with the Indy franchise, you're probably old, or older than Hollywood's targeted moviegoing demographic. From the early box office indicators, the audience was older (over-40 and not optimal for Hollywood movie financiers) and likely fans of Harrison Ford. Not a bad thing. I'd rather see a movie like this than sit through most Marvel Comics sagas. Still, in 2023, a highly-touted franchise finale (with an estimated production cost of $300 million), that came in under its projected $82 million dollar holiday weekend and met with lukewarm reviews, is not a formula for success or any type of sequel.

Other than Tom Cruise, Harrison Ford may be one of the few Hollywood movie stars who can turn around the recent popularity of streaming movies as a substitute for going out to the theater. That Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny succeeded in capturing the over-40 crowd in a post-pandemic culture is an accomplishment of sorts, but not necessarily a trend-setter for future such projects. The movie's special effects, which do convey a sense of urgency and keep you on the edge of your seat, are not comparable (with some exceptions) to the (deep breath) pyrotechnics found in many current box office blockbusters like Transformers, Guardians of the Galaxy or (cringe) Super Mario Brothers.

I did want to comment briefly on the much talked about de-aging of Harrison Ford for the earlier scenes in the movie's prologue. Some critics found the process of using visual technology to youthen Ford disturbing; others found it creepy. I didn't know what to expect, but I must say that it was kind of a non-issue for me. What came to mind is that it looked like older footage was used to show a younger version of Indy, kind of like an old family movie. But nothing remotely creepy. Of course, with SAG-AFTRA's ongoing contract negotiations, the topic of using AI to alter an actor's image is something that will need to be addressed going forward.

By the time the credits rolled (and I did not stay until the bitter end this time), I kept thinking about all the disparate components of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and one specific childhood memory kept nagging at me.

When I was a kid, there was a TV show on Friday nights that I absolutely loved call The Time Tunnel, an early science-fiction series in color, no less, that explored the possibility of time travel. At the beginning of each episode, viewers heard the show's premise from an off-screen narrator: two American scientists - Dr. Douglas Phillips (Robert Colbert) and Dr. Anthony Newman (James Darren) - "tumble helplessly toward a new fantastic adventure, somewhere along the infinite corridors of time." Each week, Doug and Tony interacted with historic figures (Marco Polo), observed historic events (the sinking of the Titanic) first-hand, and even manipulated time (Machiavelli visits the Battle of Gettysburg).

I loved The Time Tunnel, mostly because of James Darren, the original teen dream Moondoggie from1959's iconic rom-com Gidget (and several sequels), which was released before my movie going days began, but aired on TV in the mid-60s when I was just old enough to notice boys. I still have the autographed photo of the entire Time Tunnel cast that I received after writing one of my first fan letters. Darren still had his puppy-dog good looks and gentle smile, and I couldn't wait to see a new episode each Friday. Of course, nerdy youngster that I was, I learned something from each installment, running to our encyclopedia to learn more about each exciting (I was a kid, remember) historical adventure.

Unfortunately for me, The Time Tunnel was cancelled abruptly after only one season and thirty (!) episodes, so Tony and Doug were left stranded somewhere in the confusing maze of past and future. Did they survive? Did they alter history? Can we use mathematics to transcend and transport ourselves to a different time? Is it possible that the writing team from Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny knew about The Time Tunnel? Or maybe Harrison Ford provided input and thought this time-bending twist would be a grand way for Indiana Jones to wrap up his career?

It's hard to say, except that, watching this two and a half-hour marathon of chase after narrow escape after chase, I couldn't stop thinking of Doug and Tony swirling in that elliptical tunnel, crashing through time barriers, and landing in places gone and yet to be. I also started thinking about other possibilities for the fate of Indiana Jones, the character and the franchise.

There was so much potential combining the Dial of Archimedes w/Indiana's proficiency in archeology, his past encounter with the Arc of the Covenant, his enduring humanity. Of particular interest here per The Time Tunnel is whether we can change the past, alter our fate, visit other times. Sadly, none of that is developed here, and the quest for the Dial is reduced to being a vehicle for Indy's reunion w/Marion.

What a shame. And what a waste of Indy's curtain call. But then, let's face it. None of the Indiana Jones' films after Raiders of the Lost Ark was really worthy of the original, save maybe Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, which I still consider the franchise's finale. The rest has been the product of, in the words of Helena Shaw, "capitalism." And capitalizing on Ford's iconic personification of a beloved character with the promise of yielding huge box office profits.

Oh, well. Maybe this last chapter should have been called Indiana Jones and the Monumental Money Grab. Or Indiana Jones and the Yearning for Youth. Perhaps, Indiana Jones and the Longing for Legacy. I dunno. But every five minutes you can cue the music.

Coming next: Celine Song's debut feature, Past Lives.