It’s never a good sign when the most rousing part of a movie is the end credits.
But that’s the way it is, in the totally unnecessary “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny,” where John Williams’ booming “Raiders March” steals the show.
The fifth film in the 42-year-old franchise is, at least, better than 2008’s off-its-rocker “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”, which had Indy survive a nuclear explosion by hiding inside a refrigerator — and ended with a Spielbergian alien encounter.
Running time: 154 minutes. Rated PG-13 (sequences of violence and action, language and smoking.) In theaters June 30.
Of course, we always feel happy seeing Harrison Ford — the greatest American action star ever — back in the iconic fedora, even at 80 years old.
And Phoebe Waller-Bridge of “Fleabag” adds a welcome dose of spit and vinegar as Helena Shaw, Jones’ goddaughter and latest co-adventurer.
But I still left asking “Why?”
Everybody knows the Indy series should’ve called it quits with 1989’s “The Last Crusade,” after Indiana Jones and his dad, Dr. Henry Jones, Sr., played by the late Sean Connery, movingly rode off into the sunset.
Instead, now we get a largely fun-free last, last, last crusade.
First, viewers are faced with one of Hollywood’s most dispiriting trends — a digitally de-aged Ford. For the long opening sequence aboard a Nazi train in the French Alps, the actor is made to appear some 40 years younger as he searches for the Lance of Longinus — the spear that drew Christ’s blood. (The screenplay goes way too heavy on MacGuffins.)
The special-effects trick would be neat if Indy didn’t move or speak. However, in-action the character looks akin to a wax figure. Impressive, yes, but plainly not real.
We sit there thinking: Why does this overly Botoxed man sound like an 80-year-old?
The Lance turns out to be even faker than the youthified Ford, so instead Indy leaves with the Archimedes Dial, or Antikythera, an ancient Greek device the Nazis believe can “predict fissures in time.”
Like in “Crystal Skull,” director James Mangold’s movie aims to merge Indy’s earthy supernatural framework with science fiction, to mixed results. The love-it-or-loathe-it ending is a real doozy.
But long before that we’re in 1969 New York, where old man Indy lives in a shabby apartment while he’s getting divorced from Marion (Karen Allen).
On the day of Indy’s retirement from Hunter College, one of the Nazis from the train incident, Jürgen Voller, (Mads Mikkelsen) and Helena (Waller-Bridge) both come looking for the precious dial.
But Dr. Jones has only got half. On the run, he must find and recover the second part and keep it out of the hands of not only the Nazis, but also brilliant Helena, who wants to sell the mysterious device to the highest bidder.
And so begins “Indiana Jones and the Preponderance of Chase Scenes.”
Indy hops on a horse during an NYC parade and absurdly gallops through the subway tunnel at the 59th Street station. He then steals a tuk-tuk rickshaw in Tangier, Morocco, and drives it like a Maserati. In Greece, there are yet more car and motorcycle pursuits, through skinny cobblestone alleyways. After a while, these scenes become cinematic white noise.
“Indiana Jones” is a forefather of the modern summer blockbuster, and this movie — with an octogenarian star, no less — tries too hard to keep pace with today’s speedier action movies, when what we want is for Indy to be true to himself.
What audiences remember most about the original trilogy aren’t high-octane chases — it’s Indy shooting the flashy swordsman; the hero and his dad clumsily breaking out of the Nazi castle; Ke Huy Quan playing Short Round.
“Dial of Destiny” has wisps of that cherished legacy (it’s especially good to see a kid sidekick here in the form of Ethann Isidore’s Teddy), but Mangold isn’t the visual humorist that Spielberg is and can’t summon true moments of magic.
While Ford is scrappy and lovable as ever, Indy was never a role that should have been played for 41 years.
Ford has announced that he’s through wielding the whip. Good.
Let’s pray that this whole series is finally dun-da-dun-DAH-dun-da-DONE.
