Directed by James Mangold (author of the very good Le Mans 66 piloted by Disney, owner of Lucasfilm since 2012), Indy 5 puts 80-year-old Harrison Ford back in the shoes of the famous archaeologist. On the threshold of retirement, battered by loneliness and alcohol, he is asked by his goddaughter Helena Shaw (Phoebe Waller Bridge), whom he had not seen for ages, to set off in pursuit of a relic having been designed by Archimedes in the 3rd century BC. Problem: this dial is also coveted by a nostalgic Third Reich, Jurger Voller (Mads Mikkelsen), whom Indy met at the end of the war.
It starts badly
It all starts again with this meeting on a train launched in the middle of the countryside in 1944, where a digitally rejuvenated Harrisson Ford (De-Aging) is confronted for the first time with Mikkelsen. If the refreshed face of the actor is rather convincing, his voice - that of today - is no longer the same as before, precipitating all those who will remember this discrepancy voice / physical in a disorder that will not pass not the whole movie.
Alas, that's not the main problem with this sequence which, on the storyboard, could seem twirling. On screen, we are closer to a video game cinematic (but ugly) than to a movie. Everything rings false at the end: the young face of Indy, his digital stunt double running on the roof of a train car, the train speeding through the night, the pouring rain, the wind in his hair, the surrounding landscape… In short , nothing works.
Indy fans expire
The tone is set and it's not going to get better. We jump back in time to find Indy in 1969, having become an old alcoholic jerk who berates his neighbors who are too noisy. After a horse chase through the streets and subway of New York, which horribly mixes digital images, live action and fake sets, Indy continues the massacre in Tangier in a fender tuk-tuk, but also under water or in the air. Either an overdose of digital and implausibilities for a torture of two hours thirty-five. Indy fans expire…
Why Harrison Ford shoots the third emblematic role of his career?
Not once did we wonder what we were doing there, apart from witnessing the decrepitude of a myth mired in questionable visual effects (one wonders where the 300 million dollars of the film's budget went). The only mystery that remains once the film is over is why? Why didn't you think about what Tom Cruise did with Top Gun and its Maverick sequel: respect the fans, the original movie, and extend the magic, maybe by cheating a little but without showing it. Why did Harrisson Ford agree, after Blade Runner and Star Wars, to shoot the third iconic role of his career? There was a time not so long ago when we knew how to retire with class, without making the film too much. Sean Connery, Indy's dad, had done it after The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen in 2003, he was 73 years old. The best idea for this fifth Indiana Jones would have been not to.
Released June 23 on all cinema screens.
