A little over a month before its release, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny offered a Cannes preview on Thursday. The screening of the fifth part of the saga even provided the festival with the opportunity to wring a grateful smile from Harrison Ford, the eternal Hollywood grump who was honored that evening with a surprise Palme d’Or. But what is the film worth? The memory of the American archaeologist’s previous adventure, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, could give spectators at the Palais des Festivals some anxious shivers when the spotlights were switched on. The end of the session was fortunately marked by thunderous applause.
Perhaps because it was unexpected, the success of the new Indiana Jones snatched comments close to ecstasy from the press. “Eureka!” headlines Olivier Delcroix for Le Figaro; “a crazy virtuosity”, mentions the criticism of Luc Chessel in Liberation; while, on Twitter, Philippe Rouyer is delighted with a “great show” in the end “grandiose and mischievous” – we even saw Simon Riaux, rifleman at Large Screen, let go of the words “miracle” and “mastery” . Also sated with this film feast, Renaud Baronian from Le Parisien applauds in turn – and finally blows. “It’s yes, a big yes of relief, following an absolute pleasure, top-of-the-range entertainment, a great cinematic adventure”. White smoke above Cannes.
The secret to the recipe? His cook. Steven Spielberg, historical brigade leader of the saga, handed over control to another filmmaker for the first time. Master saucier James Mangold, gravedigger of the superhero Wolverine in Logan, wore the hat. The heir is up to it and “deploys a Spielbergian know-how”, approves Christophe Caron, in La Voix du Nord . In his review for Première, François Léger is also delighted with the work of the director who “elegantly appropriates Indiana Jones, between great spectacle and very clever modernization of the legend”.
An astonishing point floats from the first returns of the fifth Indiana Jones. Few lines dwell on Harrison Ford’s digital rejuvenation in several sequences of the film. However, the technique had caused a lot of ink to flow with the revived Peter Cushing from Rogue One, the perked up Robert de Niro from The Irishman or the almost chubby Johnny Depp from the last Pirates of the Caribbean. As criticism is proverbially more generous in its assassinations than in its congratulations, one risks taking this silence for a resigned satisfaction.
Expected at the turn, the rejuvenated version of Harrison Ford therefore seems to pass the test of verisimilitude. That’s not the case with all the special effects though – maybe not quite finished yet. “We rub our eyes in front of the mediocrity of certain visual effects and digital backgrounds with flagrant artificiality”, asserts Philippe Guedj du Point, however rather convinced by the film. More diplomatic, Gilles Kerdreux of Ouest France delicately notes that “the scenes on a green background can be seen a little”.
The other stumbling block is the management of the abundant capital nostalgia carried by the saga. References and winks are legion. Words like “counterfeits”, “self-quotation” and “copy” were written. Much less enthusiastic than their French colleagues, Anglo-Saxon critics shamelessly compare this Dial of Destiny with the hated Kingdom of the crystal skull. Variety’s Owen Gleiberman sighs of this “sequel that serves up nostalgic rose water without the slightest thrill.” Vanity Fair’s Richard Lawson laments the uniconic object of Indiana Jones’ quest. The American preferred Moses’ Ark of the Covenant and Christ’s Grail to Archimedes’ sundial, “which simply does not have the same cultural weight”.
James Mangold, however, manages to straddle his few wanderings and lead them to a cinematic object on the verge of extinction in Hollywood blockbusters: an idea. The one who crosses Le Cadran de la Destinée is steeped in a particular melancholy, “that of memory, of the advantages and disadvantages of going back, or not, in time. In short, old age, vestige, old debris. A whole archeology”, notes Luc Chessel for Liberation. For Fabrice Leclerc, of Paris Match, the message is thus delivered with accuracy thanks to “the intelligence of a scenario which takes all expectations the wrong way”. This did not prevent several journalists from finding the time long. Count two and a half hours to see the Dial of Destiny.
On the side of Le Monde, critics like to slow down and bite, from time to time, into a madeleine. So we pastiche Proust there. This gives the following title: “Harrison Ford in search of lost time”. Jacques Mandelbaum admits to being charmed by “the poetic motif of time travel”. He explains: “Harrison Ford becomes, before our eyes, the true relic of this final story, a testimony to the past that is dear to us and that we keep preciously to avoid, as well, that this past is abolished in We.”
