The new movie “Indiana Jones” is a time machine to the future and the past

Always those Nazis! For the third time, in what is now the fifth installment of the “Indiana Jones” series, they plan to wreak havoc while hunting the eponymous Dial of Destiny, the wheel of destiny. In fact, in 1944, when the Millennial Reich had long since collapsed, Hitler’s henchmen aimed at the lance that delivered Christ from his suffering on the cross.

But the real powerful artifact is the Antikythera, a disc built by the Greek mathematician Archimedes and broken in half before his death. It can be used to predict calendar constellations and time travel. This is what the German physicist Dr. Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) on the plan, who wants to complete what his leader failed: “The past is ours!”

One can think of the “Indiana Jones” movies as a pop culture archeological revenge fantasy against the National Socialists, who stole, appropriated, and destroyed cultural treasures. This reckoning was always cruel: the Ark of the Covenant in the first part “Raiders of the Last Ark” (1981) melted faces and burned the whole gang, the Grail in “The Last Crusade” (1989) disintegrated the Nazi collaborator into a skeleton.

The adventure series is not only a spectacular rollercoaster ride, but also an exploitation phenomenon fit for the masses. It explores both the colonial limits and those of the taste that children can tolerate. The fourth part, “Kingdom of the Crystal Skull” (2008), received a lot of criticism: meerkats, aliens and especially the scene in which Indy survived a nuclear bomb that fell hidden in a refrigerator, made fans shudder. But they easily forgot that the series had a high dose of weirdness and absurdity right from the start.

The new “Indiana Jones”, on the other hand, is much less curious and carefree. It is the first not directed by Steven Spielberg, but by James Mangold (“Identity”, “Logan”), a man with little signature of his own, but with great craftsmanship. And it’s 80-year-old Harrison Ford’s final appearance in a role that has become a cult, mostly out of childhood nostalgia. When it premiered in Cannes, “Dial of Destiny” provoked mixed reactions. But the fifth adventure has by no means turned into a fiasco, despite all the lack of risk in the staging, more of a typical action movie of our time.

The main action takes place in the summer of 1969, at a time when Henry Jones Junior himself has become a relic. The old man is in a difficult phase of his life: his father (Sean Connery in part three) has passed away, his son (Shia LaBeouf in part four) has died in Vietnam. The marriage to Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) is a mess.

The students at New York’s public Hunter College no longer flirtatiously blink their eyelashes, but yawn as the professor gives a lecture on ancient shards. All of America is in the grip of the lunar landing fever. In the flower power era, only Indy is an old hand with white, disheveled hair.

It takes a young, revitalizing force to lure the adventurer out of the dusty archaeologist. This comes in the guise of Helena Shaw, his godson. She is the daughter of Basil (Toby Jones), who helped Indiana search for the disc in 1944. Now the second half must be found.

British screenwriter and actress Phoebe Waller-Bridge (“Fleabag”) plays this bright, educated Helena; it is the anarchic climax of the film, which is predictable in parts. Chase after chase, the craziest leads from a parade to the subway shaft on horseback. Otherwise, the fifth adventure is routinely built, but with a running time of over two and a half hours too long.

The movie about time travel is itself a time machine. Both to the past and to the future with its technical possibilities. For all scenes set in the Nazi era, Harrison Ford’s face has been digitally aged using previous footage. So Indiana Jones looks like she looked again at 45. That may have been far from perfect, the lack of lighting diligently helps so that we don’t get the impression that we are playing a computer game. But it looks more polished than Scorsese’s The Irishman and Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.

“The Dial of Destiny” is also the continuation of a dream that Steven Spielberg and George Lucas once had: to remember the adventure films of their childhood. The present has always met the past like a grave robber. But at some point every treasure chest is looted, as seen in the often uninspired, nostalgia-hungry blockbuster of the era.

Ironically, “Indiana Jones” was never about the treasures that the hero loses every time anyway. Because he gets something else in return: recognition, self-knowledge, fulfillment. And this time too, Indy has found peace with himself, his life’s work, his loved ones. The felt hat can finally be hung. Will the next generation of movie freaks really bring him out again?

“Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”: from 29.6. in the cinema.