I grew up watching Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones – that whip-cracking and adventurous archaeologist for decades.
Jones has hunted down artifacts across the globe, fought Nazis, and has only been briefly deterred in the face of snakes and the love of his life – Marion Ravenwood.
Still, “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” are the last installment with Ford at the helm and he’s been quoted numerous times that he’s taking that whip to his grave.
Overall, I enjoyed the film and how it gave Jones a way to secure one last adventure before full retirement.
Plus, the computer graphics used to de-age Ford are more believable and applicable than some others I’ve seen lately.
Destiny is an action-adventure film directed by James Mangold and co-written by Mangold, Jez Butterworth, John-Henry Butterworth, and David Koepp.
This film is a sequel to Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) and serves as the fifth and final installment in the Indiana Jones franchise.
It stars Ford in his fifth and final portrayal of archaeologist Indiana Jones, with John Rhys-Davies and Karen Allen also reprising their roles as Sallah and Marion Ravenwood, respectively, from earlier films.
New cast members include Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Antonio Banderas, Toby Jones, Boyd Holbrook, Ethann Isidore, and Mads Mikkelsen.
It’s rated PG-13 for sequences of violence and action, language and smoking and clocks in at 154 minutes long.
In 1945, during the liberation of Europe in World War II, Nazis capture Indiana Jones (Ford) and fellow archeologist Basil Shaw (Jones) as they attempt to retrieve the holy Lance of Longinus at Nuremberg Castle.
Astrophysicist Dr. Jürgen Voller (Mikkelsen) informs his Nazi superiors that the Lance they possess is fake, but he has found half of Archimedes’ Dial – the Antikythera mechanism built by the ancient Syracusan mathematician Archimedes.
An astronomical calculator, it leads users to fissures in time.
Jones escapes capture and jumps onto a train filled with looted antiquities.
He rescues Basil and they obtain the Dial-half, just to leap from the train before Allied bombers destroy it.
In 1969 in New York City, Jones has been separated from his wife Marion since their son, Mutt, died during the Vietnam War.
Jones has just retired from Hunter College when his godchild, Basil’s daughter Helena (Bridge) arrives.
As a newly graduated archeologist herself, she approaches Jones about researching the Dial.
He warns that Basil, now deceased, was nearly driven insane attempting to unlock its secrets.
During a flashback, we see Basil gave Jones the Dial, but Jones never destroyed it as he promised him.
As Jones and Helena retrieve the Dial-half from the university’s archives, Voller’s henchmen attack them.
Voller now works for NASA under a new identity and is assisted by a CIA group led by Agent Mason (Wilson).
Helena escapes with the Dial-half and ends up exposing her intention to auction it on the black market.
Jones flees into a parade celebrating the Apollo 11 astronauts, and then an anti-war protest, before escaping on horseback through the New York City Subway system.
He seeks out his old friend Sallah (Davies) – who is now a cab driver – to help him get out of the country and save Helena.
Jones travels to Tangier and prevents Helena from selling the Dial-half at a private auction.
Voller and his henchmen arrive and steal the Dial, forcing Jones, Helena, and her teen sidekick, Teddy Kumar (Isidore) to ally and pursue them in an auto rickshaw.
Still, nothing goes according to plan and Jones has to try and stay one step ahead of Voller for the rest of the movie..
