Now well into later years, to say nothing of the mileage, Indy gets roped into looking for the famed "Archimedes Dial", which is being sought by his goddaughter (played by Phoebe Waller-Bridges), and a Nazi scientist (Mads Mikkelsen) that helped the U.S. put men on the Moon.
It's, fine, I guess. Didn't need to be 2.5 hours, certainly. The last act, the whole thing on the plane and the time travel, that all goes too long. Why is Boyd Holbrook's character machine-gunning Roman trimeres? I guess so he's not involved in the fight in the back of the plan between Harrison Ford, Mikkelsen and Waller-Bridges, and because he's an idiot whose first response to anything that mildly inconveniences him is, "shoot it." But it felt unnecessary. Just have do the bomb bay doors bit earlier and have him fall through, too. Nobody was going to be sorry about a few less scenes with that character.
Of course, I'm not sure how Mikkelsen's character survived getting knocked off the Nazi train in 1945 by colliding with one of those mail bag hook things. Not just survived, the guy doesn't even look like it scratched him. I expected them to at least give him a disfigured face when he popped up again in the 1960s.
There's a few set good pieces in there, though. Indy's escape on horseback through the parade. The chase through Tangiers, complete with Waller-Bridges' jilted mobster fiance. Mangold seems to take the same approach to those that Mel Brooks takes with jokes: If you didn't like one, just wait a moment and there'll be another.
Ford gives Indiana a proper amount of weary, sour old man energy The gripe about how going to the Moon is like going to Reno, except no blackjack, cracked me up. His students aren't distracted because they want to bone him, they're just bored. Their eyes are on the future, while his are only on the past and what he's lost. He doesn't ever really seem excited until the end, when it looks like he's going to stay in the past, in a literal sense. Mikkelsen's not much different, except he's certain he can change the past.
(I appreciate the movie did not do a thing where Indy has to decide whether to let Mikkelsen kill Hitler or not. I was very concerned that was the direction they were going for a minute.)
So it falls to Waller-Bridges to bring a little spark of joy to the proceedings, which she does fairly ably. She's a bit of early - Temple of Doom/Raiders of the Lost Ark - Indiana Jones. "Fortune and glory," though it's more "fortune and excitement" for her. Or maybe just fortune. But she talks fast, and with a quick wit, keeps her cool even when Tangiers cops are trying to keep her in one spot until said-jilted mobster fiance arrives. She's tried to wall off her heart from people she's lost, or who disappointed her (Indy's been remiss in his godfather duties), treat people as tools to use to get herself out of trouble. But she can't quite manage it entirely. For a good chunk of the film, you're left wondering (I was, anyway) if she's just waiting for the right moment to betray Indy, which is a nice bit of ambiguity.