Indiana Jones 5
STARRING HARRISON FORD, PHOEBE WALLERBRIDGE, MADS MIKKELSEN, SHAUNETTE RENEE WILSON, TOBY JONES, ANTONIO BANDERAS ETA 30 JUNE 2023, CINEMAS
From the title to its plot-triggering MacGuffin, the finer details of the fifth Indiana Jones movie are locked as tightly away as a Biblical treasure in a government warehouse.
But at least we know there’s a top man working on it. A top man. Celebrated for such emotionally weighted tales as 3:10 To Yuma and Logan, James Mangold inherits the director’s bullwhip from Steven Spielberg, who steps back to serve as producer this time around.
“We have almost completed the next Indiana Jones film,” revealed franchise cornerstone Harrison Ford at Star Wars Celebration in May. “I had a wonderful experience working with James Mangold, with Kathy [Kennedy] and with Frank [Marshall], and I am really proud of the movie that we made. So I’ll be seeing you around campus.”
With Ford redefining the parameters of big-screen action heroes as he pushes 80, Indy 5 shifts the timeframe to 1969 – back when George Lucas was just a camera wrangler for the Rolling Stones. One set-piece chase sequence finds the two-fisted archaeologist caught up in a New York ticker-tape parade celebrating the return of the Apollo astronauts. Elsewhere, Mangold’s movie looks to recapture the globe-hopping spirit of the franchise, abandoned for 2008’s studio-heavy, CGdependent Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull. Locations include Morocco and Sicily, where the stunning Temple of Segesta will provide authentic ancient-world production value.
More intriguingly, another sequence promises to return Indy to his fighting prime, battling Nazis (he hates these guys!) in war-torn Europe. Whether this is a flashback with a de-aged Ford or part of some fiendish timey-wimey shenanigans remains to be seen – rumours persist that Indy’s latest scrape has a fourth dimensional twist that may just give him a first-hand taste of history…
With a cast that includes Phoebe WallerBridge, Mads Mikkelsen, Antonio Banderas and Marvel star Thomas Kretschmann, and the matchless John Williams scoring, fortune and glory await.