Fifteen years since the regrettable INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL came to our cinema screens, the world’s favourite movie archeologist is back with an all-new globe-trotting adventure. Harrison Ford, who is now 80 and looks amazing for his age, returns as Professor Henry Jones Jr., and sees his character take on both old foes and new who are trying to turn back time.

After a cold open set in 1944 Germany where Indy wrests an ancient artifact away from the Nazis, the story jumps ahead to 1969 New York City. Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins are about to be feted with a tickertape parade but there’s trouble afoot. German physicist Dr. Schmidt (Mads Mikkelsen, ANOTHER ROUND; THE HUNT), who works in the NASA space program, is in New York to get his hands on a relic known as the Antikythera, or the Dial of Destiny… well, half of it at any rate. Indy has it in a storage room at the university where he works… well, worked, because the noted professor has just retired. At the same time, Indy is visited by his goddaughter, Helena “Wombat” Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge, GOODBYE CHRISTOPHER ROBIN), who is the daughter of his old friend and fellow archeologist, Basil Shaw (Toby Jones, EMPIRE OF LIGHT). Helena, Indy quickly discovers, is a bit of grifter and she steals the relic and heads to Morocco where she plans to auction it off to the highest bidder. Indy, of course, follows her there to get the item back with Schmidt not far behind. It turns out that Indy and Schmidt have met before. Back in 1944, Schmidt, whose real name is Jürgen Voller, was the Nazi officer Indy stole the Antikythera from. Now, Voller wants it back so that he can go back in time to save the Third Reich but, to do that, he needs the other half. Indy, Helena and her young sidekick Teddy (Ethann Isidore), and Voller and his henchmen all race to the Aegean where they believe they’ll find it.

I would be crazy to complain about seeing even a de-aged Harrison Ford on screen and, fortunately, both young and old, he’s the best thing about INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY. The technology truly is amazing and scary at the same time. We’re already seeing deep fakes and other AI-generated images on our social media feeds, and it’s only going to become more prevalent over time. I’m not sure how much of Indy’s stunt work Ford actually did, although he reportedly injured his shoulder while rehearsing a fight scene, but that doesn’t really matter. The actor still has the charisma to look convincing riding a horse at full gallop through Manhattan’s subways.

As for the rest of the film, it’s fairly average. Although it tries to capture the Saturday afternoon movie matinee spirit of adventure that Spielberg put in his early INDIANA JONES films, DIAL OF DESTINY director James Mangold (FORD V FERRARI) doesn’t quite hit the mark here. I can appreciate that Mangold may have wanted to create another LOGAN by showing audiences an old-time action hero who isn’t needed in the modern world, but it didn’t work and the problem may have been the script which, for the most part, plays it safe, giving audiences a dose of fan service with the albeit too brief inclusion of two other beloved INDIANA JONES characters.

While Mads Mikkelsen puts in a solid performance, as he always does, his character isn’t given any nuance. He’s just a cardboard-cutout villain, though, I must add, a handsome one in his de-aged years. Unlike Schmidt/Voller, who is just plain evil, it seems that the writers couldn’t decide what Helena should be. Pehaps they may have wanted her to be a good person who has low moral character for some reason that I never clearly understood, but instead they created someone who is just obnoxiously smug. At least Ethann Isidore is fine as Teddy, but all he’s really playing is this film’s “Short Round”, the character in INDIANA JONES AND THE TEMPLE OF DOOM played by recently-bestowed Oscar winner Ke Huy Kwan. The writers should have called Teddy “Short Brown”. Of course, in action-adventure films like these, audiences have to suspend their sense of belief but Teddy knowing how to safely fly and land a plane without any training or video games to practice on really stretches the bounds of credibility.

Happily, INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY is a much better film than CRYSTAL SKULL, although that’s a low bar to jump over. But for an ending to a beloved franchise, it’s disappointing that it wasn’t anywhere as good as the other INDIANA JONES films.

INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY is in cinemas now both in Hong Kong and pretty much everywhere else.

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