Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

I am mixed on the franchise (I loved Raiders of the Lost Ark and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade but I didn't care for Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and I absolutely hated Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) but I was incredibly excited to see Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny last night.  While it is not quite as good as my favorites, it is loads better than its predecessor and I had a lot of fun watching Harrison Ford don the fedora in his final outing as the iconic character.  At the end of World War II, Indiana Jones (Ford) and fellow archaeologist Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) are attempting to retrieve antiquities stolen by the Nazis.  They eventually claim a part of Archimedes's Dial, which is thought to be able to predict fissures in time, and Indy decides to keep it hidden.  In 1969, Shaw's daughter Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) locates Indy, who has become a grouchy old man being forced into retirement from his position at Hunter College, and contrives to steal the Dial from him.  He follows her to Morocco where she tries to sell the Dial on the black market but it is stolen by Jurgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen), a former Nazi who wants to use it to go back in time to win the war for Germany.  Indy, Helena, and her sidekick Teddy Kumar (Ethann Isidore) decide that the only way to stop Voller is to find the other half of the Dial before he does and an adventure around the world ensues.  I really liked the story, particularly Indy's relationship with time and his preference for history as the world changes around him.  The action sequences are exhilarating, including a thrilling fight on a moving train, a chase on horseback during a ticker-tape parade in honor of the Apollo 11 moon landing, another chase through the streets of Tangier in a motorized rickshaw, and an epic aerial battle for the ages, but I found some of the visuals to be a bit dark and murky at times.  All of the callbacks to the previous movies are a lot of fun (the crowd cheered out loud the first time we heard Indy's iconic theme and again the first time a map showing Indy's route appeared on the screen) and I found the reconciliation between Indy and someone from his past to be very affecting.  Ford at 80 years old is still every bit the action star and delivers a great performance but Waller-Bridge steals the show and her morally ambiguous character is a great foil to Indy.  This is not the best in the franchise but it is certainly not the worst and I recommend it as a fitting farewell to the character.

Note:  Harrison Ford has now reprised the roles of Han Solo, Rick Deckard, and Indiana Jones.  Who should be next?  I'm thinking Jack Ryan...