Indiana Jones & The Dial Of Destiny Review: 6 Ups & 4 Downs

3. The (Mostly) Mediocre Action Sequences

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny Harrison Ford
Disney

Even with Steven Spielberg vacating the director's chair for this installment, James Mangold (Logan, Ford v Ferrari) is certainly no slouch, and he seemed like a canny replacement to ensure the new Indiana Jones offered up its own fair share of kinetic action.

Sadly, that's largely not the case.

The biggest problem? Much like Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, there's a grotesque over-reliance on poorly implemented green screen work.

Though the various chase sequences have entertaining practical elements, almost any time it cuts to Harrison Ford or any of his co-stars in the midst of the action, they appear poorly composited into the mayhem with blurry, garish VFX.

Given the mesmerising, practically-motivated set-pieces in the first three Indy movies, almost everything here feels pretty stock and ordinary.

Of course Ford isn't expected to fight with the same verve of his younger self, but where's the creativity and inventiveness of the set-pieces to compensate?

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Contributor

Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes). General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.