James Mangold directs Harrison Ford, Mads Mikkelsen and Phoebe Waller-Bridge in this concluding chapter to the archaeologist adventure series where Henry Jones Jnr finds some surviving Nazis to punch in the Sixties.

It is just not cricket to square up any sunset sequel to the unimpeachable classic original trilogy… yet comparing Dial Of Destiny to Crystal Skulls feels like solid ball work. The new movie is a far safer, conservative and smoother experience than the derided fourth entry. Any problems feel like inherited unavoidabilities rather than the risks of bored untethered creatives (Lucas & Spielberg) who could almost be heard grumbling as they returned to the Well Of Souls with a passel of half hearted ideas. And even if you fanatically hate the abrasive 2008 cash-in that left everyone a bit shellshocked, I’ll just point out I don’t dislike it. There’s nothing in Dial quite as exhilarating as nuked fridges or ant eviserations. So let’s get the wobbly stuff out of the way first.

The AI de-aging flashback effects manage to convince for all of three seconds until Indy has to move his head, then we are stuck in quite a compelling 20 minute PS5 era cut-scene you wish we could take control of and have some 1945 fun with. Later sequences have squalls of rain, steam and ticker-tape to cover up their pixelated forger notes. Waller-Bridge’s self-aware sidekick Wombat grates like a Jar-Jar Binks or a Mutt and her spindly posh girl arms do not convince in the rough and tumble. Luckily, the crash of Tuk-Tuks and the juddering of shutting down propellers often drown out her plummy Millenial Marvel-esque meta commentary on the peril and pitfalls. The series never needed snark and certainly one wonders what a more natural movie star like Emily Blunt or Felicity Jones might have made of the untrustworthy goddaughter role?

Yet digital FX and flavour of the month casting are the hamstrings of any current franchise entry. What about the good stuff? Dial Of Destiny is rather bravely more of an adventure movie than an action flick. Ford’s age doesn’t just limit what he can and cannot do onscreen but Hollywood changes also mean that on-location stunt work and period spectacle just don’t happen on the same level. Not now key master technicians have aged out and celluloid is no longer the format. There is just one shot of Jones and Wombat entering a cave and being overawed by the scale that feels like it rekindles any of the true 1981 magic time. Mikkelsen and Boyd Holbrook make for threatening antagonists – there’s a surprising amount of murder in the first hour which ups the stakes for the heroes regularly. No spoilers now but there is also a third act plot swerve that might become as derided as the previous adventure’s notorious inter-dimensional beings… but I hope that it doesn’t. The inspired finale is well tee’d up and we spend more than a few seconds living in it so the talking point gamble feels a bit more a part of the story entire. And how pleasurable is it to have a summer blockbuster where the treasures of the last hour aren’t raided by the trailers six month before we even get a chance to buy a ticket? Most importantly, Ford is an evergreen class act. This could have been his Top Gun: Maverick, instead it proves a perfectly adequate episode in The Old Indiana Jones Chronicles. You leave with a smile on your face but there’s no need to install a pacemaker. Your childhood winding down into a warm bath of hard drive nostalgia.

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Perfect Double Bill: Indiana Jones & The Kingdom Of the Crystal Skulls (2008)

My wife and I do a podcast together called The Worst Movies We Own. It is available on Spotify or here https://letterboxd.com/bobbycarroll/list/the-worst-movies-we-own-podcast-ranking-and/