Warning: This article may contain minor spoilers for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny.
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny received its world premiere in front of a Cannes audience today, and the first reactions have already hit the internet. Although there is still more than a month until the general public will get to see Harrison Ford bring Indy’s story to a conclusion, the initial reactions have suggested that it will be more than worth the wait.
Stephanie Bunbury for Deadline had plenty of praise for the final outing of Ford’s Indy. Commenting on the way James Mangold manages to make sure that the action sequences don’t go on so long they become boring, and how it invokes the feel of a good old fashioned Indy adventure while taking full advantage of modern technology. In summary:
“It’s fun; it’s wacky; it works. I don’t know what Alexandrine mathematical codes are; I don’t have a clue whether a time fissure is a real thing. It doesn’t matter. Reality doesn’t matter, except for Nazis: they still matter.”
Radio Times’ James Mottram noted that as many expected, there are Easter eggs to be found in the belated adventure, but not so many that the movie is fully relying on nostalgia to carry it. However, like many of Indy’s adventures, there are things afoot in its final act that are not of this world.
“In a film about the past, its fitting that there are some references to former adventures, but Mangold and his scriptwriters don’t overdo the Easter eggs. There’s enough iconography – the whip, the fedora – close to hand anyway, to ensure you don’t forget you’re watching an Indiana Jones movie. The final reel may take a serious flight of fantasy, but unlike those aliens in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, it somehow feels an apt journey for Indy. Perhaps the film could’ve been more daring – it feels fairly safe – but fans will leave cinemas feeling like their old hero had one final great outing in him.”
For Games Radar, there is a special mention given to how even though the action and the spectacle, the ones thing that is very much at the heart of the movie is Ford as Indiana Jones himself. As a character that has been seen growing old on screen, it seems that unlike some late arrivals, Dial of Destiny is a movie that really needed to be made. They said:
“Ford has shown he’s a dab hand at playing the curmudgeon, so it seems apt that Mangold and his co-writers should steer the character in this direction. By the end, though, you’ll have a smile on your face, especially when it comes to the final shot: an elegant tip of the hat to one of cinema’s greatest heroes.”
Harrison Ford Was Awarded an Honorary PalmeD'Or at the Premiere.
Before the screening of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny got underway, star Harrison Ford was greeted with the surprise presentation of an honorary Palme D'Or. While Ford was clearly emotional about the award, he humbly accepted the accolade with thanks to his audience who have been with him through his career, before quipping that he had a movie to show.
While the initial reactions have been pretty positive for Dial of Destiny, it seems that Ford himself has had a hugely memorable time at Cannes regardless of how the movie performs when it is released at the end of June. Having said that, despite landing in one of the busiest summer schedules for four years, it seems that Indy's swan song is destined to be one of the hits of the year.