Ivan Radford | On 23, Dec 2023

Director:
Cast: Harrison Ford, Mads Mikkelsen, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Antonio Banderas, Boyd Holbrook, Karen Allen, Toby Jones
Certificate: 12

“What if you could go back in time? What would you do?” That’s the question posed to Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) partway through his unlikely fifth outing – unlikely because his fourth outing, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, wasn’t exactly great, and because Harrison Ford is now 81.

This time round, Indy’s in 1969 and feeling increasingly out of step with a changed world. When Nazis pop up hunting the Dial of Destiny – an invention of Archimedes that legend has it can control time – what begins as a last hurrah for an old-timer who spends his life digging up history turns into a gently poignant exploration of finding one’s place in the present as well as the past. Steven Spielberg might not be at the helm, but Logan helmer James Mangold is a natural fit for an adventure such as this.

We begin 20 years earlier, in 1944, as Indy (a unecessarily, distractingly de-aged Harrison Ford) is battling the Nazis aboard a speeding train in the French Alps, as you do. He’s accompanied by Oxford archaeologist Basil (a scene-stealing Toby Jones) and the duo manage to rescue the Dial of Destiny from the clutches of Dr Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen). Fast forward to 1969 and, with Basil dearly departed and the Dial of Destiny gone missing, up pops Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), Basil’s daughter and Indy’s goddaughter. She’s also in the family business of antiquities, but to sell them rather than preserve them. Inevitably, they all up on a collision course.

The cast are all clearly having an absolutely romp of a time, with Phoebe Waller-Bridge lapping up every inch of screentime she can get – playing Helena like Karen Allen’s younger counterpart, she’s less a character and more a wise-cracking machine, but is good value when going toe to toe with Mikkelsen’s sinister, ambitious villain. The return of John Rhys-Davies as Sallah, meanwhile, is charming but belongs in a film made several decades ago.

The script – by Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth, David Koepp and James Mangold – ticks all the boxes you could wish for, from a tuk-tuk chase down Tangier’s narrow streets to red lines on maps and a smattering of puzzle-solving in hidden caves. But most fitting of all is that the film invites you to take a leap of faith for its final act, which gives a fresh spin to the question of what Indiana Jones’ dream treasure would look like.

It’s that bold climax that makes the film its own beast, but it also highlights that so much that comes before it feels by-numbers, without the same fresh spark of energy that drove the first three films forward. But perhaps that’s also an apt quality for a sequel that leans into Indy’s weary wondering about whether he should still be treading familiar territory – the absence of Mutt, after Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, is a sad missed opportunity to properly pass the baton, but adds weight to Indy’s emotional baggage.

However much your mileage varies, though, there’s no denying that it’s a joy to see Ford back in the jacket and hat. He finds a new side of Indy, as he wakes up in a Space Age that no longer has the black-and-white simplicity of a matinee adventure yet still wants to bring history to life for others. Whatever destiny may hold for the franchise’s future, his wry grin, twinkling resilience and grizzled warmth are as timeless as ever.

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