The fifth big-screen Indy adventure has at least one thing going for it that none of the others did - a lack of any great expectations.
Indiana Jones and The Crystal Skull put paid to that. And there are a few other enthusiasm curbers. No Spielberg and Lucas; Ford is over 80; its lukewarm reception at Cannes, and the bloated running time. So realistically, just about the best we could hope for from Indy 5 is alright, and alright is just about what we get.
Though mostly set in 1969, the film opens with a WWII sequence that uses the same de-ageing digital technology as The Irishman to make Ford look like his young self. It has to be said that the technology is not quite there. Mostly it works fine, but occasionally he’s like something from a Pixar film.
It looks and feels like an Indy film without Mangold and cameraman Phedon Papamichael slavishly trying to replicate the look of the Spielberg films. The script, which focuses on a hunt for a time piece made by Archimedes that the Nazis believe can turn back time, has a few decent ideas.
The new characters work well enough: Jones T. makes a good bumbling academic, Mikkelsen is a cracking Nazi scientist, and overall I enjoyed Waller-Bridge’s turn as a kindly Joyce Grenfell-esque Lara Croft. Ford is still the best thing in it, at least when it’s clearly him.
You may find yourself wishing they’d use that dial to turn back the clock to a time before the pervasive use of CGI and when Ford could still do the majority of his own stunts. Almost everything looks computer generated. Various spots in Scotland were used as locations during the 2021 shoot and, apparently, the film is one of the most expensive ever made, but if someone told me the entire thing had been done in front of blue screen I'd believe it.
The main reason to come to an Indy film is for the stunts, but this is one almost entirely without them. You can get people to do anything with CGI - except make them care.
There is a case that really Raiders is the only Indy film that is anything special. Temple of Doom doesn’t hold up, and Last Crusade is just Raiders rehashed, but it did round off the trilogy nicely. They really should’ve stopped there. This doesn’t fire you with the burning, affronted sense of outrage that Crystal Skull did, but it's decidely ho-hum.
Film rating 12A. Directed by James Mangold. Starring Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelsen, Boyd Holbrook, Antonio Banderas, and Toby Jones. 154 mins.
Go to http://half-man-half-critic.weebly.com/for a review of the Criterion blu-ray release of Chaplin’s The Kid.
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