(Spoiler Alert: Don’t read this if you’ve not seen the movie yet)
Like various other long running movie series (like Star Wars or James Bond), it has taken a long long time to get to the final episode. Was it worth it? Well yes… and no. The movie begins near the end of WWII, and once again the bad guys in this movie are Nazis, a safe choice in this day and age since they are overwhelmingly, and pretty universally condemned for their anti-Semitism and racial mythology about an Aryan Jesus. We then jump to 1968 just after Americans walked on the moon. Indy is by now an old man, and not up for massive new ventures. But he was going to have them anyway. Too much of the first half of this long film (2 hours and 24 minutes) is chase scenes which call for you to suspend your disbelief so many times that you feel like you’re wearing multiple pairs of loose suspenders! They should have been dead numerous times over.
The story revolves around a device supposedly invented by Archimedes which supposedly could enable time travel. Half of it sank to the bottom of the ocean near Greece in Roman times, and the other half turned up on land and passed through many hands. But Mr. Nazi, who actually helped the allies win the war by changing sides, wants both halves so he can go back to 1939, and do the Fuhrering right. Little did Archimedes know that his calculations for time travel were a little off.
The last hour or so of the film was the best, as both the bad guys and the good guys end up on Sicily in 214 B.C. when the Romans and Greeks were fighting and Archimedes was trying to help the latter, of course. The movie is nicely resolved by a return to 1968, and some surprising reunions, but I’ll leave that for you to learn about by seeing the movie.
Honestly, with this series, clearly the earlier movies were the better ones, particularly the first one Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). It was nice however to see some old friends like Antonio Banderas reprising his role as Indy’s side kick. And there are some nice hommages to famous scenes from the previous movies in the series. For summer fun, this is worth the trip to the cinema, especially if you like the main character. Phoebe-Waller Bridges is fine as Indy’s God daughter as well. And no there is no nudity or bad language in the film, so apart from the violence, this is fun for all the older members of the family. Here’s an interesting recent brief interview of Harrison Ford about the films…
Next up, the next installment of Mission Impossible, only in this case, that series will not end this summer.
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