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Ticket giveaway

LSJ and Kismet have three double passes for the film Reality, in cinemas from 30 June.
A game-changing role for breakout star Sydney Sweeney (Euphoria, The White Lotus), this superb political thriller keeps viewers on the edge of their seats from the beginning. Based on true events, it will undeniably get you thinking. Watch the trailer here.
For a chance to win, email [email protected] your LawID number and contact details with the subject line REALITY, by 10am on Tuesday 4 July.

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

It has been a rough decade for Dr Henry “Indiana” Jones. After meeting his son Mutt, re-uniting with the love of his life Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), and chatting with aliens at the top of a South American mountain, the old doctor finds himself alone again, about to retire as a professor to a group of uninterested university students. It’s 1969, and people are no longer looking at the past – they want the future. Going to the moon, listening to David Bowie, looking forward.

In the real world, it has also been hard for the character. The fourth film was panned by critics and fans, and it felt like the spark he generated in his creative team (Spielberg, Ford, Lucas) was gone. Now a Walt Disney asset, James Mangold took over directing duties. An opportunity was given to give good ol’ Dr Jones a worthy swan song: read, a chance for Disney to again capitalise on the nostalgia of gen-Xers and millennials and test the waters to continue the franchise for years. The film premiered to yawns and shrugs in Cannes.

After a prologue set during the last days of World War II, with a classic Indy set piece that goes from escaping a castle, to a moving train, the film goes back to the 60s where a soon-to-be-divorced and retired Indy gets recruited by Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller-Bridge), the daughter of Indy’s partner in the prologue Basil Shaw (Toby Jones), to continue the search for her father’s life obsession – the MacGuffin du jour, an instrument created by Archimedes that gives the power to find time portals. It’s also the obsession of Dr Voller (Mads Mikkelsen), a German archaeologist who wants the item to reverse the tide of War.

On goes Indy, Helena, and a young Moroccan petty thief called Teddy (Ethann Isidore) who they recruit when the adventure takes them to Tangiers.

The elements are there. It’s a globetrotting adventure (from the United States to Morocco, Greece and Italy) with daunting action sequences and the occasional puzzle quest. But if you paid attention to the previous paragraph, you noticed some elements referencing other films in the saga. Nazi villains check (Crystal Skull replaced them with the Soviets), a new replacement for Short Round, an escape from a Nazi castle, a train sequence, and a return to North Africa (where Indy briefly meets with Sallah, again played by John Rhys-Davies). There is a scene where Indy has to dress up as a German officer, like in The Last Crusade. There’s one where Helena freaks out surrounded by creepy-crawlies, like in Temple of Doom, and, if you squint your eyes a little bit, Dr Voller could be a doppelganger or Major Toht from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Mangold’s approach is to play the hits on the off-chance it gets recognised by an audience chasing the high they got from watching the original trilogy as children. Pure nostalgia porn, so blatant I am even inclined to bet it had less to do with Mangold and more with a Disney committee that requested him to include as many traits from the previous instalments as possible. “People loved Short Round, make sure there’s another kid side-kick”, which Mangold and the writers reluctantly complyw with by adding a new character so useless that the film could’ve continued without it, and no one would have noticed.

That is Dial of Destiny‘s downfall. As much as we know what makes an Indy film an Indy film, the reality is all the other four films have their own form and style, save for a couple of elements – the music, Ford’s snark, and something about snakes. Say what you want about Crystal Skull, at least it has panache and personality. A lot of it doesn’t work, but swinging to the fences made it enjoyable.

For a film about a man still stuck to the past, it does little to re-imagine its future. It’s refreshing to see the look is right – Kaminsky’s image flares and studio lighting in Crystal Skull didn’t work at all, though I can say that Phedon Papamichael’s night scenes in Dial of Destiny are horribly dull and devoid of any personality – but it misunderstands how all the beats work. The action set-pieces in the saga are convoluted and funny, further highlighting the everyday-man stature of Indiana, who always manages to escape by sheer luck and quick thinking. They are chaotic and humorous, and none of that is here. There’s a tuk-tuk chase in Tangiers that, for a second, looks like a turning point when the tuktuk is forced to go back through a series of narrow roads. It felt like a return to the past; we get a fun moment where Indy has to argue with a woman and teen kid while driving a little motorised bike backwards. But it is over way too soon and descends into a generic action scene that would fit any other straight-to-Netflix action scene.

It’s fine. It’s an okay film. I could be more acerbic if I wanted to get personal about how much the character means to me and how this film just misunderstands the original trilogy. But what’s the point? This is done, it exists, and it does it all without offending anyone. It hits diminishing returns but does it with competence. It works, but barely. One thing characterises the film perfectly. At some point, Indy meets with a Spanish diver played by Antonio Banderas, who is on screen for little more than 10 minutes, is given only exposition lines and offered nothing to work with. If this was Raiders, his persona would have been something like an aging Spanish womaniser with a drinking problem and deep-rooted hatred for Nazis. You know, something compelling to keep the audience interested and engaged. In Dial of Destiny he is just a guy with a beard. Isn’t it a crime to underuse Banderas? I’m pretty sure it is.

Verdict: 3 out of 5
For everyone who still gets shivers when John Williams’ score starts playing. There’s enough to keep you going, but unfortunately, little else.

Ticket giveaway

LSJ and Kismet have three double passes for the film Reality, in cinemas from 30 June.
A game-changing role for breakout star Sydney Sweeney (Euphoria, The White Lotus), this superb political thriller, keeps viewers on the edge of their seats from the beginning. Based on true events, it will undeniably get you thinking. Watch the trailer here.
For a chance to win, email [email protected] your LawID number and contact details with the subject line REALITY, by 10am on Tuesday 4 July.