Fortune and glory, kid. Fortune and glory.
On his last day as professor of archaeology, Dr. Henry Jones Jr. (Harrison Ford) is visited by his goddaughter, Helen Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) with a proposal - help her find a long-lost dial belonging to Archimedes of Syracuse that could point the way to openings in time. There's just one problem - a NASA scientist who was once a Nazi physicist (Mads Mikkelsen) is on the hunt for the same dial, with plans of his own and the knowledge of how to use the dial...
There's a line in 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' that, oddly enough, relates to the series as a whole. René Belloq, played with sinister delight by the great Paul Freeman, holds up a pocket watch to his shadowy reflection. "I take it, I bury it in the sand for a thousand years, it becomes priceless." The DNA of Indiana Jones is similarly cheap and flinty, coming from adventure serials, pulpy novels, rip-offs of James Bond and B-movies. Yet, through the years, it's become a revered name and now, history has finally caught up with it. Harrison Ford is 80 years old, and what's more, Dr. Henry Jones Jr. is too. So can any of it still be as it was? Can he still beat the shit out of Nazis like it's 1933 or 1981 all over again? Of course not.
Yet, in a way, it doesn't really matter. Much of what makes 'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny' so enjoyable is that - bar an opening sequence with a dead-eyed CGI version of Harrison Ford running around the top of a train - we're seeing Harrison Ford playing Jones like his age. It's not like it's 'The Irishman', where it's painfully obvious an elderly man is playing a much younger man, but rather it's an old guy trying his best to keep up with the world and not always getting there. Much as we've seen Jones in the past, he's vulnerable and prone to getting it wrong. He's not a superhero, and he certainly isn't as fast or as strong as he once was. Yet that's what gives the action the kind of stakes frequently missing from your Marvels and your DCs.
As a partner in action, Phoebe Waller-Bridge is a suitable accompaniment. There's a dry wit and a snappy rejoinder available at any moment, but in truth, it's youth and cynicism clashing together as ever. Mads Mikkelsen, meanwhile, plays the Nazi protagonist with the requisite amount of moustache-twirling and goose-stepping required for the audience to believably hate him. Likewise, Boyd Holbrook is his loyal Alabaman henchman, complete with flat-top haircut and thinly-veiled racism. Beyond that, you've got the old gang back together for a scene or two - Karen Allen and Jonathan Rhys-Davies both return in good spirits and there's a real sense of comfort and closure from it all.
That's really what 'Dial of Destiny' is about, the idea of a hero at the autumn years. It's not that he's not got any more fight left in him, or that he's out for one last adventure, but rather that he's gone so far and done so much that he's the one who belongs in a museum. The ending, without giving too much away, does take a leap of faith - but this is the same series where Dr. Jones found the Holy Grail, survived brainwashing, and brushed off the power of the Ark of the Covenant.
As a final send-off, 'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny' is as convincing and meaningful as you could hope for. Compared to where 'Kingdom of the Crystal Skull' left the obtainer of rare antiquities, 'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny' allows him to walk off into the sunset with the hat held high.