Watching George Lucas & Steven Spielberg's Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull - or any of the Indiana Jones movies, for that matter - ought to be required study for every film-maker ever hoping to enter the action/thriller genre. While the franchise offers us as many logic-defying situations as the typical action flick, Lucasberg understands that above all they're here to entertain us and as long as they do that even the most anal of viewers won't mind, for instance, that when told our hero's the father of a young man, he doesn't question the veracity of the statement in the least. Instead of demanding a blood test, he immediately claims paternity and demands the Wild One-era Brando-wannabe get his fannie back in school.

That unquestioning faith could be due, in part, because Harrison Ford's Indiana Jones finds out this information while neck deep in a type of quicksand, along with the boy's mother - or it could be because another thing Lucas understands is myth-making and if the world Indiana Jones occupies isn't as wholly a product of Lucas' imagination as Star Wars was, the character is nonetheless a part of America's mythic pantheon for the franchise, alone (reports have it cashing in a $300 million + opening weekend at the box office). Spielberg, he's got a few stories of his own that have long ago seeped into American culture lore.

Okay, so ....

It's the 1950s. Professor Henry Jones has aged a bit; instead of fighting Nazis, he's fending off Hoover's FBI due to evil communists intruding on his day.

The story goes, there's a magical crystal skull that, if properly hung in its place, will give the hanger all the knowledge and powers of the universe, more or less. One of Indy's old chums (John Hurt as a kinder, gentler Dennis Hopper) seems to know where it is, and comrade crystal-gazer Irina (Cate Blanchett's turn as a stylistic badass) Spalko wants it

In addition to some of the best / most fun stunts and chases the be shot anywhere, the movie has a lot of little, creepy things to make the delicate squirm, just a bit. Not just spiders & snakes, but man-hungry ants the size of golf balls, lots and lots of cobwebs you just know have to be hiding something nasty and dead -- I'm not going to give that particular spoiler away, I think.

I was only really disappointed by one aspect of the movie, and that was Karen Allen's return as Marion Ravenwood. It's expected Marion would be a bit like the Tasmanian she-devil, but not expected she'd spend so much of her screen time as Tasmanian she-devil in bride mode. I suspect (hope) there may have been a bit left on the cutting room floor.