Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny First Reviews: 'Safe,' 'Wacky,' 'Empty,' Critics Say

Exactly 15 years after the Cannes premiere of the previous installment, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny just made its debut at the same film festival, and the first reviews have made their way online. This fifth movie in the franchise sees Harrison Ford return as the titular adventuring archaeologist, with many of his scenes set in the past using de-aging special effects.

Also along for the ride are Phoebe Waller-Bridge as Indy’s goddaughter and Antonio Banderas as a new ally, while John Rhys-Davies returns as Sallah, last seen in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. James Mangold directs Dial of Destiny, taking over from Steven Spielberg, who helmed the first four Indiana Jones movies.

Here’s what critics are saying about Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.

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(Photo by Lucasfilm)

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Does it live up to expectations?

“It’s fun; it’s wacky; it works.”
– Stephanie Bunbury, Deadline Hollywood Daily

“We all sat down to this movie hoping for a resurgence comparable to what JJ Abrams did with The Force Awakens, and if that didn’t exactly happen, it still gets up a storytelling gallop.”
– Peter Bradshaw, Guardian

“James Mangold brings the character’s adventures to a satisfying close.”
– James Mottram, South China Morning Post

“If this is the final Indiana Jones movie, as it most likely will be, it’s nice to see that they stuck the landing.”
– Steve Pond, The Wrap

“Unfortunately, it ultimately feels like a counterfeit of priceless treasure: the shape and the gleam of it might be superficially convincing for a bit, but the shabbier craftsmanship gets all the more glaring the longer you look.”
– Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph

“A belabored reminder that some relics are better left where and when they belong.”
– David Ehrlich, IndieWire

“We have lived with worse.”
– Donald Clarke, Irish Times

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Where does it rank among the other Indiana Jones movies?

“It’s an improvement on the execrable Crystal Skull.”
– David Jenkins, Little White Lies

“This one has quite a bit of zip and fun and narrative ingenuity with all its MacGuffiny silliness that the last one really didn’t.”
– Peter Bradshaw, Guardian

“Dial of Destiny feels like an old-school Indy romp, more so than 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, as it tries to capture the rollicking spirit of the originals.”
– James Mottram, South China Morning Post

“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny may not be the finest film of the franchise, but it’s far from the worst.”
– Matt Neglia, Next Best Picture

“Nobody with a brain in their heads will compare Dial of Destiny favorably to the first three films.”
– Donald Clarke, Irish Times

“Four were enough.”
– Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph

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What are some other comparable movies?

“There are big National Treasure vibes…take from that what you will.”
– David Jenkins, Little White Lies

“It could give late-vintage Fast & Furious a very, very speedy run for its money when it comes to spectacular (and spectacularly ludicrous) SFX stunts.”
– Stephanie Bunbury, Deadline Hollywood Daily

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How is Harrison Ford’s return as Indiana Jones?

“Ford is beyond triumphant…his performance shines in the sense that the audience can feel the deeply emotional send-off he personally is giving his character in every quip, every punch, and every heartfelt adage that comes off his lips.”
– Lex Briscuso, Slashfilm

“At 80 years old, Ford himself really gives it his all, even though the role initially requires him to look like he’d rather be anywhere else.”
– Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph

“Now 80 years young, but carrying it off with humor and style and still nailing that reluctant crooked smile.”
– Peter Bradshaw, Guardian

“He never loses either his scowl or his doggedness. He plays even the flimsiest scenes with conviction and dry humour. His performance carries the movie. Age cannot wither him in the slightest.”
– Geoffrey Macnab, Independent

“Ford often seems disengaged, as if he’s weighing up whether this will restore the tarnished luster to his iconic action hero or reveal that he’s past his expiration date.”
– David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

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What about Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s new character?

“She is gratifyingly badass.”
– Stephanie Bunbury, Deadline Hollywood Daily

“Like Karen Allen’s Marion in the first film, a Howards Hawksian woman.”
– John Nugent, Empire Magazine

“Phoebe Waller-Bridge has a tremendous co-star turn as Indy’s roguish goddaughter.”
– Peter Bradshaw, Guardian

“Waller-Bridge has clearly been given the instruction to ‘just do Fleabag’ but she’s operating without Fleabag-level material here, and her frequent attempts to juice up the clumsy gags with her trademark winking delivery tend to fall flat.”
– Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph

“While Phoebe Waller-Bridge, of Fleabag fame, makes her saucy, spiky, and duplicitous in a cheeky way (she’s like the young Maggie Smith with a boatload of attitude), we never feel in our guts that Helena is a chip off the old Indy block.”
– Owen Gleiberman, Variety

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How are the movie’s villains?

“As Jürgen Voller, Mads Mikkelsen is enjoyably hissable.”
– John Nugent, Empire Magazine

“Mikkelsen, flanked by some heavies including Boyd Holbrook, is an excellent adversary.”
– James Mottram, South China Morning Post

“He’s an infuriating villain, one that feels both menacing and overwhelming in his brutish intelligence — the kind of adversary it seems impossible to defeat, and thus the perfect final match for the one and only Indiana Jones.”
– Lex Briscuso, Slashfilm

“Mikkelsen can be a fabulously debonair villain (see: Casino Royale), but any interesting idiosyncrasies the character might have exhibited are drowned in convoluted plot. This calls for a larger-than-life bad guy, and he’s somehow smaller.”
– David Rooney, Hollywood Reporter

“Mads Mikkelsen, with his lizard scowl and his shiny metallic hair, doesn’t play Voller as a realistic character. He’s a leering megalomaniac out of central casting.”
– Owen Gleiberman, Variety

“Unfortunately, what we get is the pantomimic, hubristic, goose-stepping version of the Nazis.”
– David Jenkins, Little White Lies

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Are the action scenes worth the price of admission?

“The action is often very inventively staged. James Mangold, who has taken over directing duties from Steven Spielberg, sets a breakneck tempo.”
– Geoffrey Macnab, Independent

“A bit involving a very heavy bomb is worthy of any movie this franchise has ever produced.”
– David Ehrlich, IndieWire

“There are plenty of jolly chases, including a tuk-tuk vs classic Jag event in the narrow streets of Tangier.”
– Peter Bradshaw, Guardian

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“The action is generic and clunkily staged – for all the local detail in every individual shot of the heavily advertised tuk-tuk chase, it might as well be taking place on an endless conveyor belt.”
– Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph

“Endless action sequences can become so flabbily overblown they lose any punch, but [Mangold] is never anything but brisk.”
– Stephanie Bunbury, Deadline Hollywood Daily

“Like virtually all action sequences these days, this one suffers from the fact that visual effects can do pretty much anything, which tends to strip away any sense of surprise, novelty or even high stakes, no matter how frantic and extravagant things get.”
– Steve Pond, The Wrap

“[They] utilize too much (far too much) of the era’s computer-generated imagery.”
– Donald Clarke, Irish Times

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Does it otherwise look good?

“The recreations of the 1960s vistas are gorgeous.”
– Donald Clarke, Irish Times

“There’s no shot here, nor twist of choreography, that makes you marvel at the filmmaking mind that conceived it.”
– Robbie Collin, Daily Telegraph

“The climax of the film…looks washed out and sallow.”
– Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair

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Is the script satisfying?

“The plot is hokum of the cheesiest hue, but the screenwriters know that hokum is the mulch in which this franchise germinates.”
– Donald Clarke, Irish Times

“The screenplay does provide a few big laughs.”
– Jo-Ann Titmarsh, London Evening Standard

“The screenplay sometimes seems like a mish-mash of elements from the older movies thrown together in scattergun fashion.”
– Geoffrey Macnab, Independent

“The globe-trotting can occasionally feel a bit MacGuffin-by-numbers: we must find the thing, which leads us to the map, which will help find the other thing.”
– John Nugent, Empire Magazine

“One can feel the four credited screenwriters grasping at inspiration and coming up short.” – Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair

“Considering that the screenplay is credited to four writers, couldn’t they at least have thought of something cool for Indy to do with his whip?”
– Nicholas Barber, BBC.com

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Does it lean too much on nostalgia?

“It contains lots of satisfying fan service, from old friends popping up, to familiar situations unfolding in different ways.”
– Steve Pond, The Wrap

“Just hearing John Williams’ score, yet another variant on the heroics and theatrics of the original, makes anyone of a certain age feel that everything is momentarily right with the world.”
– Stephanie Bunbury, Deadline Hollywood Daily

“This is an exercise in affectionate nostalgia.”
– Geoffrey Macnab, Independent

“At least this film’s easy nostalgia has some meta-textual purpose behind it.”
– David Ehrlich, IndieWire

“The film just about gets a passing grade for not going too heavy on the nostalgia-porn fan service.”
– David Jenkins, Little White Lies

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Is Steven Spielberg missed?

“The missing component is Steven Spielberg, for as talented as a director James Mangold is, he cannot measure up to the cinematic brilliance that Spielberg imbues into each of his projects.”
– Matt Neglia, Next Best Picture

“James Mangold, tasked with living up to a fearsome legacy, is competent with an action set piece, but displays little of Spielberg’s nimble, inventive physics, or of Spielberg’s famous gift for conjuring awe.”
– Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair

“It’s content to tick off everything you’ve seen in other Indiana Jones films already, but with little of Spielberg’s sparkle.”
– Nicholas Barber, BBC.com

“The biggest (or at least most evident) difference between Spielberg and Mangold is that one of them would never have allowed himself to make anything this stale, and one of them probably wasn’t given any other choice.”
– David Ehrlich, IndieWire

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Are there any other major issues?

“As the film goes on, the focus on uninteresting puzzles becomes a bit tedious.”
– Donald Clarke, Irish Times

“Tonally, the film wavers. It pulls in too many different directions at once.”
– Geoffrey Macnab, Independent

“One problem is the title relic, a curio of Ancient Greek lore rumored to give its possessor the power of time travel…Dial of Destiny’s digression from holiness, though, is less than inspiring.”
– Richard Lawson, Vanity Fair

70% Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023) (Walt Disney Pictures)

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