The adventuring, treasure-hunting, ultra-manly Indiana Jones franchise has defined large portions of story-telling history in Hollywood. Not only did it inspire countless adventure romps, it also spawned one of the most successful video game characters – Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, and then later the idea was gender-swapped back into the acclaimed Uncharted series with Nathan Drake.

Indiana Jones is an expression of our real-world adventurers that captivated the West through travel journals and newspaper columns across many decades before the era of Hollywood adapted their stories for the big screen. These people were civilisation’s glimpse of the unknown. Shackleton, Fawcett, Drake, Cook, Speke, Livingstone, Polo… The list is endless. They all tap into the deep human curiosity about the knowledge we have left behind as civilisation grows through the ages.

Searching jungles, ancient cities, and deserts for lost historical treasures is a very ‘colonial’ thing to do – and that’s a problem for modern ‘sensitive’ movie makers and impossible TikTok audiences that enter into arguments about racism in Indiana and the Temple of Doom. (Keep in mind this is the same generation that wants race-segregated universities and believes timekeeping and academic achievement count as white supremacy…) Regardless, executives want to cash in on the Indiana nostalgia without sullying themselves with all that awkward toxic white man action. In the past, this has led to franchises refashioning themselves into something that is barely watchable. We have to wait until June 30 to see for ourselves if Indiana Jones survived its last hurrah without too much residual trauma.

If you’re confused about Indiana Jones being back in the news, that’s because everyone thought the franchise was dead and buried with the atrocious Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. The film featured chipmunks, Indy in a fridge, alien heads, awful CGI messes, Transformers-style humour, and a woeful Cate Blanchett. Yes, it had problems, but it served as a solid conclusion to the franchise that sat at the back of the DVD cabinet.

Fifteen years later, Indiana Jones is back, no doubt after 80-year-old Harrison Ford was led out of semi-retirement with a trail of dollar bills and a latent desire to leave behind a better final chapter for his fans. That’s not to say he can’t put in a great performance. He was perfectly cast in the (very late) sequel to Blade Runner, where his former character arc was given a fitting and realistic conclusion. Blade Runner 2049 used Ford’s advancing age as part of the neo-noir cinematic experience. Whether that approach suits the Indiana Jones franchise was mostly answered in the fourth film with a ‘not really…’

For his part, Harrison Ford was given a standing ovation at the Cannes Film Festive where he had visible tears in his eyes. It’s been a long journey for him and Indy, and the man deserves his moment.

Harrison Ford with tears in his eyes during the standing ovation for ‘INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY’. pic.twitter.com/mJtRv4wLKk

— DiscussingFilm (@DiscussingFilm) May 18, 2023

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, the latest adventure, sounds like a movie about a remote control flicking boredly through the Woke Netflix catalogue. After the premiere at the Cannes Film Festival, the internet became awash with speculation, nervous hope, and plenty of faux outrage after people started posting fake lines of dialogue. Among the most hilarious attempts to stir the pot is a scene where Indy was reported as saying, ‘I fought the Nazis.’ This is a real line from the trailer, but was followed with the fanciful, ‘You also stole from Indigenous people.’ It’s not social media’s fault for believing this. If we let AI chatbots take over from writers, this is exactly the sort of film we’ll get.

The best thing anyone has had to say about it so far is, ‘It isn’t a disaster.’ Parts of the movie have digitally de-aged Ford to fit in with flash-back scenes, a trick that movie makers love but leaves the film feeling not-quite real and eerie in a way that audiences largely don’t like. It is the same sensation that comes when a director resurrects a deceased actor for a final scene.

The reviews coming in could best be described as ‘polite’, such as the Irish Times, ‘We have lived through worse.’ That sounds like the review I give my dentist. ‘Considering that the screenplay is credited to four writers, couldn’t they at least have thought of something cool for Indy to do with his whip?’ wrote the BBC.

Some gave it two stars, others coughed up four depending on whether they were genuine viewers or members of the access media who want an invite to the next premiere.

It should also be noted that while Steven Spielberg gave his blessing to the film, it is directed by James Mangold. If I am to be brutally honest, Spielberg’s absence is much of a muchness, given so many of his recent projects have lacked the talent he displayed in the works that made him famous. We have not seen the clever direction of Jurassic Park for a very long time.

As for what we know about the story, it centres around the Antikythera – a dial built by Archimedes which has (no surprise) fallen into the hands of the Nazis. Having literal Nazis on screen in the Woke world of Hollywood means we’re unlikely to get historically menacing villains but rather a reason to construct hideously cringe dialogue that broadcasts as much virtue as possible.

I’ll always love Raiders of the Lost Ark. I’ll always dream of action-adventure fantasies where people go out into the unknown corners of the world to discover the missing treasures of humanity.

‘This is the final film in the series, and this is the last time I’ll play the character,’ said Harrison Ford. ‘I anticipate that it will be the last time that he appears in a film.’

But a word of warning to Hollywood: people don’t like to see their heroes age. They don’t like the frailness and sadness to detract from the legend. Executives did the same thing to James Bond, scavenging the corpse of a dis-empowered ‘pale, stale, British male’ to make a point about powerful females and a modern world. It doesn’t make for a good story, let alone entertainment.

There’s a reason Hollywood is sitting around milking franchises from the 80s for a bit of extra cash. Storytelling has died. And no, it’s not because the writers have gone on strike. The art of crafting a movie has been reduced to a paint-by-numbers political exercise by the Hollywood elite who have determined that awards for excellence will only be handed out to those who comply to a regulation of ‘diversity and inclusion’.

The Indiana Jones franchise is a perfect mirror for Western film – a tired formula caught between hyper-commercialism and political virtue. The result is something that feels as if it is drawing to a close. This is the end, not only for Indy, but for the glorious Hollywood era.