Movie reviews: Hefty dose of whip-crackin’ thrills in 'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny'
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The retro newness of 'Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny' is an attempt to recapture the magic, and it does deliver a hefty dose of whip-crackin’ thrills, but like the de-aged Harrison Ford in the film's opening 20 minutes, it doesn’t exactly feel like the real thing.
The artifact at the heart of the action in “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” is a time-shifting device called the Antikythera. This ancient, analogue computer with the power to find fissures in time, however, isn’t the only thing about the movie that revisits the past.
Everything old is new again in director James Mangold’s vision of the classic action-adventure. There’s the much talked-about de-aging of Harrison Ford, the grand old man of action-adventure, which effectively brings back the classic Indy of the original film, and the reappearance of much-loved characters like John Rhys-Davies as Sallah. Even the new characters, like Helena, played by “Fleabag’s” Phoebe Waller-Bridge, feel like a throwback to the characters invented by Steven Spielberg and George Lucas when Ronald Reagan was still in office.
The action begins in 1944. Indy (the de-aged Ford) risks everything to help his colleague, Basil Shaw (Toby Jones), keep Nazi scientist Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) from getting his hands on a mysterious dial known as the Antikythera. Used properly, the dial has the ability to manipulate time, and say, change the outcome of a certain war.
“Hitler made mistakes,” says Voller. “And with this, I will correct them all.”
Cut to 25 years later. America has just landed on the moon and the nation is jubilant, but it is a jubilation the weathered Indy does not share. In the wake of his separation from
Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) and the death of his son, he starts each day with a shot of booze and a bad attitude.
On the eve of his retirement from teaching, a face from the past shows up. Helena Shaw (Waller-Bridge) is Basil Shaw’s daughter, Indy’s estranged goddaughter, an archeologist and a thief. Her interest in the Antikythera lures Indy back into a world of international adventure, former Nazis and the echoes of history come to life.
