INDIANA JONES and THE DIAL OF DESTINY (James Mangold, 2023)

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(Directed by James Mangold from a script by Jezz Butterworth, John Henry Butterworth, David Koepp, and Mangold; starring Harrison Ford, Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Mads Mikkelsen, Toby Jones, Antonio Banderas, John Rhys-Davies, and Boyd Holbrook. Released 30 June 2023; watched 2023w50 via 4k)

If I learned anything from this entertaining-enough trip down memory lane, it's that Spielberg is as integral to INDIANA JONES as Harrison Ford is under the fedora: Mangold is one of the best, most competent storytellers working today with a panache for finales (LOGAN, I mean... damn) and DIAL is a competent, occasionally thrilling exercise in old-school adventure filmmaking, but for DIAL to truly feel like the farewell to one of the best, most iconic franchises of the last 42 years that it was intended to be, it needed more than competence: it needed Spielberg's unabashed heart and Spielberginess. His decision to not direct DIAL, to "pass it on to a new generation" – perplexing, considering that that's something you would do if the series was continuing which this clearly isn't (P.S. the only actor working today I could see convincingly playing Indy would be Ryan Gosling) – will, I think, go down as the greatest tragedy of the series – yes, even more so than CRYSTAL SKULL which, for all of its LeBeouffery and vine-swinging with monkeys and nuclear-explosion-survival-via-refrigerator excesses, nonetheless wore those excesses proudly and in the best spirit of the series's Saturday matinee / Republic serial inspiration. I'll stick with THE LAST CRUSADE as the farewell, with CRYSTAL SKULL and now DIAL OF DESTINY as wistful and flawed approximations of memories in a family photo album.