‘I love being older’, says Harrison Ford as he retires Indiana Jones

US actor Harrison Ford poses during a photocall for the film “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” at the 76th edition of the Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, southern France, on May 19, 2023. (AFP)

CANNES,  France – Artificial intelligence may have been used to make Harrison Ford decades younger in parts of his final film as Indiana Jones, but the 80-year-old actor said Friday he loves being older and has no plans to slow down.

Ford, whose “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” premiered in Cannes the previous night, has vowed this will be his last outing as the swashbuckling archaeologist after more than four decades in the role.

And Kathleen Kennedy, president of Lucasfilm which also owns the Star Wars franchise, gave a resounding “no” at a press conference when asked if AI would be used to keep Ford coming back to the role.

An emotional Ford welled up several times while reflecting on his long career and co-stars, and said he was “real happy with age”.

“I don’t look back and say, ‘I wish I was that guy again,’ because I don’t. I love being older, it was great to be young but, shitfire, I could be dead, I’m just older,” he said.

And he has no plans to slow down, confirming he would do another season of both Western drama “1923” and comedy “Shrinking”.

Mixed reviews

Ford was complimented by a reporter on his physique in a shirtless scene near the start of the movie.

“I have been blessed with this body — thanks for noticing,” he said to laughter from the press crowd.

But asked why it was time to let Indy go, Ford gestured towards himself and said with his ever-present dry wit: “Urr, is it not evident?”

He first swung onto screens as the quick-witted and intrepid archaeologist with his trademark fedora and whip in 1981’s “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, followed by three blockbuster sequels.

Ford also got emotional while receiving a surprise honorary Palme d’Or ahead of the premiere of the fifth instalment.

He is joined in the new adventure by Phoebe Waller-Bridge as his witty and more sprightly sidekick, with Mads Mikkelsen as a villainous Nazi scientist.

‘Wildly silly’

The movie sees him fighting Nazis from Manhattan to Sicily, but critics have given the film mixed reviews.

Some were nostalgically transported by the logic-defying scenes and rousing theme song, with The Guardian newspaper calling it wildly silly and entertaining”.

Empire also enjoyed the ride, saying it remained true to its “fantasy” leanings, but that the “barmy finale… might divide audiences”.

The Hollywood Reporter was less impressed with the “rinse-and-repeat formula of chases and gunfights” and “how glaringly fake so much of it looks”.

Elsewhere at the world’s leading film industry shindig, three of the 21 movies in the running for the top prize Palme D’Or were premiering on a rain-drenched Friday on the French Riviera.

British director Jonathan Glazer was set to present his much-awaited “The Zone of Interest” about the banal private life of a Nazi officer alongside the horrors of the Auschwitz concentration camp.

Also showing are “About Dry Grasses” by former Turkey’s Palme-winner Nuri Bilge Ceylan, and “Four Daughters” from Oscar-nominated Tunisian Kaouther Ben Hania.

A brief moment of drama saw police cordon off a wide area around the festival’s red carpet to probe a suspicious package, which turned out to be a bag lost by a tourist.

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Agence France-Presse