The new Indiana Jones movie, the final instalment of the saga that began over 40 years ago with Raiders of The Lost Ark (1981), has been causing pandemonium in Cannes. The press and the public alike have been fighting for tickets. The number of paparazzi swarming around the Grand Theatre Lumiere, where it showed, has risen significantly. The Dial of Destiny may be screening out of competition but it’s the one world premiere that everyone wanted to see. An added piquancy was lent by the fact that Harrison Ford has already confirmed this will be his last performance as Indiana. At the world premiere, the craggy old actor was very emotional as he received an honorary Palme D’Or from the festival director Thierry Fremaux.
Ford is in typically redoubtable form in The Dial of Destiny but the film itself is sprawling and very uneven. It starts promisingly with an action sequence toward the end of the Second World War in which somehow, using the magic of CGI, Indiana is shown as a youngish man tussling with the Nazis. This is when he first encounters the fiendish Jurgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen). This prelude offers exactly what you expect from an Indiana Jones adventure: chases, explosions and an epic fight sequence on top of a runaway train. Toby Jones registers strongly as Indy’s companion, Basil Jones, a diminutive, eccentric but staunchly heroic English academic who helps Indiana stay alive.
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