Watch reviewThe much loved franchise is back, and with it our beloved Harrison Ford, who plays Indiana Jones in what is said to be his fifth and final instalment. The actor is determined that he is not going to play the part again. But we know, given the tremendous popularity of the films, producers may well find someone else to step into Ford’s shoes, who in any case is 80, but amazingly fit. We saw this happen with the James Bond movies – which had several men essaying 007 from Sean Connery and Roger Moore to Timothy Dalton and Daniel Craig.
Titled Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, it has been helmed by James Mangold. For the first time, he is handling Indiana Jones, the others having seen Steven Spielberg behind the camera. For those used to Spielberg’s directorial skills, Mangold seemed a bit of uncertainty. Also, this edition’s predecessor in 2008, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, was a tad disappointing. However, Ford’s brilliant performance as an iconic archaeologist must have put to rest the doubts that we may have harboured in us.
Dial of Destiny begins in 1944 when Jones has his first brush with the franchise’s latest MacGuffin, the Antikythera. He accidentally finds it when he is trying to recover another artefact stolen by the Nazis. His discovery results in a clash with Jurgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) – a scientist passionate about laying his hands on the Antikythera. This holds enormous potential and was created by Archimedes to create time!
Many years later, Jones is cherishing his retirement. He is lonely of course, but then his goddaughter, Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) lands up at Jones’ place, and she is adamant about getting the Antikythera. Well, Voller, working for NASA is also out to grab this fascinating gadget. We have quite a lot piling on.
Impressively, Ford has still not lost his touch after acting in four of the series, and in Dial of Destiny, he is refreshingly delightful. He his witty, sometimes loudly so, but is equally charming in his character’s quieter moments. This makes us wonder whether there can be another Indian Jones without Ford. Time will tell us.
Apart from Ford, Mangold has got hold of a superb cast, most noteworthy among them being Waller-Bridge. She matches skill to skill with the legend, Ford. And we have already seen Mikkelsen as a villain several movies, but in Dial of Destiny he is scarily chilly, although his character may be seen as uni-dimensional.
In the final analysis, Dial of Destiny may not be as captivating as the first three in the franchise, but still does manage to hold our attention.
