‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’: still a bit magical

First, the good news: Reports of the demise of Indiana Jones, both man and franchise, have been greatly exaggerated.

In his latest adventure, director James Mangold’s Indiana Jones and the Dial of FateDr. Jones still teaches archeology (his students are now barely awake rather than overly enamored), despite being shot nine times over the course of his previous exploits. Both tenured and seemingly immortal, he really is academia’s worst nightmare.

As for the franchise, despite the bad prognosis coming out of it DestinationAfter its largely disastrous Cannes premiere, the new movie still offers a reliably compelling and at times thrilling movie night, one anchored by one of the most engaging and laid-back movie stars of its generation. Without sacrificing his trademark “I’m making this up as I go” indifference, Harrison Ford has poured every last drop of his focus and energy into his fifth and (God willing) final attempt at his iconic hat, whip, and perfection. character to hoist. manufactured Alden boots.

Forty-two years after Steven Spielberg’s masterpiece inspired me and fellow members of my generation to hit the local millinery and score theater kids’ hats, it still feels at least a little magical to stand next to Indy and his cohort again. In this film, they are led by a game and the sassy Phoebe Waller-Bridge as an alliance-shifting, antiquities-acquiring mercenary who happens to be Indiana’s goddaughter.

Entering his world of faraway hotels, rumbling Nazi robbery trains, dusty academic hallways, and scruffy segregated apartments is especially captivating because they’ve been so intricately conceived and constructed by Adam Stockhausen, the Oscar-winning production designer whose detailed eye also works in the last Asteroid Cityfrom his longtime collaborator Wes Anderson.

So now the bad news: both the man and his current movie adventure seem hopelessly trapped in a video game.

While the early movie adventures of Dr. Jones were a paean to the serial adventures that brought wonderment to the childhoods of the Boomer creators’ grandparents, Dial of fate intends to give in to their Xbox-obsessed grandchildren.

The movie is chase after chase, each punctuated by deadly shots, shocking thumps, and jokes that sound like low-level McBain from The Simpsons. “To the victors go the spoils,” Indiana announces as he kicks a Nazi off a speeding train, sounding less like an archaeologist than a wishing studio head.

In that scene, set in 1944, a quarter of a century for the most part Dial of fate, Ford has been pixel-painted to look like a more plastic version of the character we’re all familiar with. It’s not that the much-discussed obsolescence breaks the spell; it is that Dial of fate relies far too much on the sanitized gloss of CGI for a series movie that, alongside the original Star Warswas responsible for bringing real dirt, sand and grit to our movie theater fantasies.

Then there’s the issue of the title’s dial, a fictional device inspired by the research of the ancient Greek mathematician and scientist Archimedes, which – in an unfortunate example of screenwriting over embellishment – plays a physical role in the story.

Yes, following the fleet, business moves of its box office competition The flash, Dial of fate is our second franchise to expand a blockbuster in a week to use time travel as a major plot point. (Could this be the start of a regret-fuelled, post-pandemic trend?)

Where The flash draws inspiration Back to the future, this one feels more related Bill & Ted’s excellent adventure– and that’s not meant as a compliment. In the name of the Holy Grail, why do we send a man whose only desire is to fill the nation’s museums with old bric-a-brac through crevices in time as if he were one of the children of Magic Tree House? (Depressingly, Indy destroys more artifacts than he saves during his various improbable escapes.)

Some questions are better left unanswered, like why Voller, the former Nazi official turned rocket scientist who serves as Indy’s main adversary, is so painfully dull and unmemorable despite being played by the great Mads Mikkelsen. Or why the film, the first in the series not directed or written by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas, is so choppy in its timing and structure.

Instead of, Dial of fate feverishly urges us to be grateful that we at least get one last ride. For the most part, we are, thanks to the intoxicating beauty of both the nearly $300 million production and Ford’s still-gleaming charisma.

There are some strengths, like Ford’s magnetic presence on screen and our affection for one of his most groundbreaking characters, that remain unaffected by time.

Observer Reviews are regular reviews of new and notable movies.