Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

Summary: It is 1969, and Indi is retiring. He has becomes involved, with his God daughter, Helena, in the search for the Dial of Destiny. They have part of it but the rest is somewhere in an ancient site in Europe. But a villainous ex Nazi, Voller, with sidekicks is also after the dial because he believes that if he has the complete dial he can find a fold in time which will allow him to go back to WWII and win the war. Unfortunately Helena is a bit of a grifter, and steals the portion of the dial available and goes to Tangier to auction it to the highest bidder. The auction does not take place because Voller steals it. Meanwhile Indi seems to forgive Helena for being duplicitous and they go to Greece, finding their way in the end to Archimedes’ tomb where they recover the other bit of the dial. But Voller is still on the case. Can he bring his evil plan to fruition?

Content: No sex or nudity. There is an opening scene during WWII involving a youthful Indiana Jones and a train. There after, in the present day (1969) there are many set pieces where either Voller is chasing our heroes or is being chased. The chases involve horses, tuck-tucks and a variety of attractive 1960s cars. There is a bit of sub-aqua stuff apparently in Greece, and as we move towards the climax, the appearance of the villains in their Nazi outfits. Some time travel, which could come as a surprise. There are a few jokes which refer back to previous films.

A View: This film was extremely costly to make, so as a consequence does not seem to have made any money, despite quite a healthy box office. Nor has it been loved by either critics or the general public. In line with most action films today, the set pieces were far too long. If it had been a thirty minutes shorter maybe they could have saved some money as well. There are some clever sequences, which tend to be submerged in the general churn of the action set pieces. So, even if you are a fan, maybe wait until you can watch it as a download.

I checked out Harrison Ford’s films reviewed on this site, to find that he does Han Solo, Jack Ryan, Indiana Jones and the guy in Blade Runner well, but elsewhere not too successfully, except for Witness which is a Must See.