EXT. INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF THE LOST DIALS SKULL – DAY

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is more closely related to its recent sequel than its distant cousins of the original trilogy. It attempts to take the franchise's formula and shake it up; it throws in cameos, call-backs and references but suffers the same issue every recent Lucasfilm movie has.

It's another modern Disney reboot sequel with legacy characters left in the dirt, and a 'quirky & quippy' new character is presented to us. You know this character type when in the face of fear, they will make fun of the villain's Lactose Intolerance or something random because this character is flawlessly confident. They are knowledgeable on every subject relevant to the plot, smartasses because they are always correct, sassy when held hostage and always have an escape plan. This is Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridges), and she might be the only consistent character in the film. For the rest of the ensemble, Boyd Holbrooks Klaber speaks once in the movie and then chases after Jones in each scene; Mads Mikkelsens Jürgen Voller is the most forgettable antagonist of the franchise, Antonio Banderas is out of the film faster than he's in it and finally, Harrison Ford as Dr Jones is unfortunately back for what seems like a pretty good paycheck.

I have nothing against the performances themselves. The cast is incredibly talented, but this skilled team cannot hide the terrible dialogue reinforcing the rather forgettable story. Ultimately, Indiana Jones has one of the greatest trilogies of films with a distance spin-off universe of sequels. Lucasfilm, post-2008, has not been your era.

FADE OUT.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny is the fifth outing in the series led by Harrison Ford and doesn’t have Steven Spielberg in the directing chair for our grumpy adventurer, but instead got James Mangold, of Logan, Ford v Ferrari, Walk the Line and more.

Taking on a continuing or potentially ending franchise (which let’s be real is never gonna happen with a popular ‘property’ like this) is never an easy task for any director.
But Indiana Jones 5 fumbles the bag in many ways that are hard to wrap around your head.

Fundamentally, it does have a big screenplay problem that not even Phoebe Waller Bridge’s quippy Helena can save. Rather than giving us a story about these two or focusing on Ford as the elderly protagonist, the MacGuffin object everyone is chasing after takes over the film in a not-so-great way.
Often the movie seems it could care less if there’s no actual interesting conflict happening between the characters.
They escape in Scooby-Doo-like fashion and solve riddles without any process, solely waiting for the audience to clap for cheer-worthy moments and cameos.

The opening action scene with a de-aged Harrison Ford is probably the best sequence in the movie, even if it ends with a very unfortunate mistimed beat. There are a few issues with eyelines in some scenes but other than that it’s fairly solid and I guess not affected by the lackluster writing yet.

Mads Mikkelson’s is alright and Boyd Holbrook is quite one-noted.

It might be enough for popcorn entertainment but it is way closer to Kingdom of the Crystal Skull than the Original Trilogy.