Elisa Giudici reporting from Cannes
I was one of the lucky ones able to reserve a ticket to one of just two screenings of the hottest movie of 2023. So I felt like an intruder at the end, when a substantial portion of the audience clapped and cheered. I couldn't stop thinking of the incredible amount of money used to do absolutely nothing original or relevant. The good news, at least, is that those who feel a particularly special bond to the Indiana Jones franchise will probably enjoy seeing Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
While James Mangold is no Steven Spielberg, it's important to note what he's up against here...
Think of the challenge: Mangold has little artistic license at all and has to make a huge movie work despite an impossible premise. His director at least evokes that feeling of an end-of-the-century action blockbuster, creating a couple of scenes that would work well even within a superior Spielberg movie. The two scenes involve a bomb dropping in a Nazi castle and an amazing chase scene with Indy on horseback in a street parade.
In a way, though, the magnitude of action sequences in today's Hollywood pictures, are a tougher enemy for Indy to fight than Nazis. The Dial of Destiny can use computer generated visual effects to make bigger, bolder sequences than in any of the first three Indiana Jones movies. But should it given that the results can feel fake?
The Dial of Destiny opens with a long flashback of Indy fighting the Nazis. Digitally rejuvenated Harrison Ford is often impressive but the alteration proves distracting anyway. When Indiana Jones confronts the villain of the movie decades later in 1969 (Mads Mikkelsen) you wonder why Mikkelsen has aged so insignificantly, in comparison with Ford himself.
The most surprising element of the movie is how obvious its contradictions between the past and the present are since the plot reflects on time. The Dial of Destiny, a legendary artifact made by Archimede to travel in time, is nothing but a cautionary tale of how dangerous and worthless it is to try to make the past live in the present.
It was surely not impossible to make a great Indiana Jones movie in 2023. Cinema is, after all, the art of making the impossible possible and visible. But it would have required the right idea at the right time time with the right people to pull it off. A formula created in the 1980s is unlikely to continue working in 2023 without a great deal of change. Helena, played by Phoebe Waller-Bridge, is the only risk worth mentioning that's "new" in this movie. Despite her natural charisma, the script's fear of being accused of substituting her for the old Indy makes it impossible for the character to stand out. Mads Mikkelsen is also hindered. He's very skilled at playing villains as we know but he has far too little to work with, his character a mere suggestion of Stereotypical Evil Nazi.
Despite all these major reservations, I don't mean to label it a disaster. It's a watchable film and at worst underwhelming. Initially, I was entertained, followed by boredom. In the end I just couldn't shake the unsettling thought of so much energy and money being spent to state the obvious, that Harrison Ford is a Indiana Jones. Since Ford also returned as Han Solo in his golden years in a similar fashion to make nostalgic audiences happy, I could only think of the iconic image of Han Solo trapped in carbonite from the original Star Wars trilogy. What if we wasted the last years of Harrison Ford's career looking at him only in the past?