Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: Another legendary franchise crashes and burns

First, they came for Star Wars. Next, they butchered the cartoon classics with futile live action remakes. After that, they tore down the superhero genre their predecessors worked so hard to build.

Now, with the final nail in the coffin, the bumbling band of filmmakers that make up Disney’s production team have taken yet another timeless classic and ripped it to shreds.

It’s painfully ironic that this latest disasterclass should concern a titular character whose entire mantra is based around leaving historic artefacts where they belong. Indiana Jones should have been allowed to retire in peace.

Expectations were not high going into Dial of Destiny, but the painful 155 minute ordeal is much worse than anybody could have imagined.

The same old modern-day Disney tropes are there for all to see – an aged male hero now living out a depressed existence having failed in his personal life, a young female protagonist to outshine him in every regard, a jumble of a plot which makes absolutely zero sense.

The previously heroic Doctor Jones is reduced to a shell of a man, having lost interest in all things important to him. Luke Skywalker and Han Solo (coincidentally another Harrison Ford character) spring to mind.

The creative decision which resulted in yet another hero slipping down this path is mind boggling. You’d think a company with billions at its disposal could come up with something a little more original.

While the writing is poor, Ford does himself no favours with his performance. He is lacking in energy at best, and downright boring at worst. The man is an action movie legend, but he simply doesn’t have the charisma of old to pull off the Indiana Jones charm.

He is not alone – Mads Mikkelsen is a powerhouse actor who is given absolutely nothing to work with. His villain, Dr Jurgen Voller, is bland, boring and uninteresting, never appearing truly threatening – or even to have any semblance of a proper personality.

Jones and Voller rush from scene to scene, from country to country, from timeline to timeline (sigh), without any discernible reason as to how they got there. It feels as though a tracker has been placed on our hero, allowing his enemies to catch up with him whenever the plot should desire (which, as it happens, is every couple of minutes).

In other words, the writers are either clueless when it comes to building a coherent story, or they don’t care. Probably both.

Ford’s sidekick in this installment is Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s infuriating Helena Shaw, who is by far and away the worst thing about the movie. There is not a single likeable thing about her character.

What’s wrong with that, you might ask? The issue is that the Disney writers’ minds are so unbelievably warped that they genuinely believed they were creating a fun, charming, relatable heroine.

Instead, she is nothing but an annoyance with no redeeming qualities – until, of course, with mere minutes of the film to go, she suddenly becomes emotionally attached to Indy to shoehorn a pathetic attempt at a tear-jerker into the finale.

And what about that ending? Has there ever been anything so abrupt? It comes out of absolutely nowhere and makes no sense – Marion Ravenhood, nowhere to be seen for 154 minutes in the midst of an impending divorce, re-enters the picture for some classic Disney nostalgia-bait.

In fairness, we’ve become accustomed to these blockbuster films relying on memories of the past to justify their existence. But surely, surely, a studio of this size and power can at least make the whole spectacle look a bit better?

The CGI is absolutely woeful throughout. Everything, from car chases to a cartoon Indy running atop a moving train, is far too fast – does nobody review these scenes before release and think, ‘well, this doesn’t look particularly realistic’?

Green screens stick out like a sore thumb as well. It’s not a good sign when the effects in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the first Indiana Jones installment, stand up beter despite being filmed in the 1980s. Filmmakers in those days cared about their craft – they spent days, if not weeks, constructing elaborate sets and costumes.

Dial of Destiny, on the other hand, feels like a high school project. It’s painful.

The Jones legacy has, tragically, crashed and burned. Another Disney catastrophe has treated one of our heroes with absolute disdain, intent on nothing except having a ‘strong’ female lead to outdo and outsmart him at every turn. Thankfully, the first three movies will live on as legendary action adventures.

If the character himself could have one say on the franchise, it’s no secret that he would say: “It belongs in a museum.”

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆