CANNES, FRANCE: ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny', which is all set to hit the theaters on June 30, debuted at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival on May 18. Though fans are eagerly waiting for the fifth and final installment of the series to release in theaters this summer, critics have given a mixed verdict, with some calling it “an almost complete waste of time.”
The movie is directed by James Mangold, who is known for 'Girl, Interrupted', 'Walk the Line' and 'Logan'. The movie sees Harrison Ford's character Indiana Jones defy age with special effects as he fights off Nazis. Overwhelmed with nostalgia, the audience at Cannes gave Ford a six-minute standing ovation. However, according to Variety, as soon as the movie started, the audience's stance changed. The outlet wrote, “Indeed, the standing ovations for Ford were louder before the movie played. The film’s elaborate action scenes and witty one-liners delivered by Waller-Bridge received a less-than-rapturous response inside the theater. During parts of the 142-minute film, audience members could be heard whispering out of boredom in French."
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'Painfully short on spark'
Robbie Collin of The Daily Telegraph, who described the movie as feeling “like a counterfeit of priceless treasure," wrote, “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. The film is loaded with mayhem but painfully short on spark and bravado: there’s no shot here, nor twist of choreography, that makes you marvel at the filmmaking mind that conceived it.”
Film critic Kevin Maher of The Times stated, "The good news is that it’s not as poor as Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The bad news is that it’s not much better. Ford remains on charisma overload. Even when the machine around him is on autopilot, he brings his weathered gravitas to perhaps his most significant character. Inevitably he, and Indy deserved better.” The Independent wrote, "Ford is in typically redoubtable form in The Dial of Destiny but the film itself is sprawling and very uneven."
'Indiana Jones still has certain old-school class'
IndieWire’s David Ehrlich wrote, “Not only is Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny an almost complete waste of time, it’s also a belaboured reminder that some relics are better left where and when they belong.”
On the other hand, The Guardian wrote, "Indiana Jones still has a certain old-school class." Radio Times stated, "The iconic archaeologist's swansong is a little safe – but it's an enjoyable, old-school action-adventure with more weight than Kingdom of the Crystal Skull."
Ford reportedly said that 'Dial of Destiny' was the end of his tenure playing Indiana Jones. He told Total Film before Cannes, “This is the final film in the series, and this is the last time I’ll play the character. I anticipate that it will be the last time that he appears in a film.”