Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny  ★★★★

FRANCHISES typically don’t end to the satisfaction of most.

Part of that is the film-makers having run out of energy and/or ideas, but also it’s partly due to the audience not wanting to acknowledge the end of their association with the characters.

In the case of Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, neither of these problems come into play.

Director and co-writer James Mangold chooses to wind back the clock to our first adventure with Indiana again battling Nazis in the race to uncovering an ancient secret with unexplainable undertones.

And most fans would be happy for the 82-year old Harrison Ford to put up his feet and enjoy his twilight years.

Whether the mantle is eventually handed over to another character from the franchise, we will always have a dozen hours of adventures featuring Ford to look back on fondly.

It’s been 15 years since the much maligned Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull which still featured some good action set-pieces.

In a nice surprise, the new film starts back in the same period that the original was set, with Indi and fellow archaeologist Basil Shaw (Toby Jones) trying to save relics being plundered by the Nazis in the closing years of World War II.

While the face replacement technology for Ford may not be perfect, it’s probably the best we’ve seen to date.

An exciting fight atop a speeding train ends with the villain despatched when he ploughs into a metal sign.

We jump to 1969 and a far slower and grumpier Indi is still teaching but edging closer to retirement.

Along comes Basil Shaw’s now adult daughter, and Indi’s goddaughter, Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridges) who tells him a wild story about her father being consumed by thoughts of a relic that has supernatural powers and must be destroyed.

Another character consumed by the so-called Dial of Destiny is former Nazi turned NASA scientist Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen) who is aided by renegade CIA agents in his attempts to steal Basil’s half of the Dial.

The less said about the rest of the plot the better because there is a twist in the final act that you will either enjoy, as I did, or be annoyed by.

Along with the rest of the film, which moves across borders from one exciting action sequence to another, the final act is a clever and fitting tribute to one of cinema’s greatest and most loved characters.