And being a child of the eighties, this trilogy is something I've grown up with. For just about everyone these Harrison Ford classics are tried-and-true examples of good, plain old swash-buckling adventure. The Indiana Jones trilogy has created such a cult-following, yet maintained a super-large audience that it has become a household name. And here we have it! The swinging-from-ropes, running-for-your-life-because-you've-accidentally-tripped-a-trap excitement continues: Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Steven Spielberg has done it again. Harrison Ford has done it again.
Without giving too much away, we have Dr Henry Jones II, Archeology professor ("part-time") caught up in a big mess involving 1950s American southwest - Nevada specifically. 'Hangar 51' (oddly reminiscent of Roswell) looms in the background of the first scene in which we see a wizened Indiana Jones pitted against disgustingly evil but clean-cut Communist Russians. It is the time of the Red Scare, and suspicion of communism is rampant all over the United States. Indiana is more or less dragged in on a mission to uncover a body that has been kept in the hangar for years, something he helped discover in the first place but feigns ignorance in the face of Russian bad-girl Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett). Dressed in her spotless grey outfit with the boots, the black holster high on her waist and the expression of cruel determination, Irina is a very traditional if one-dimensional 'bad guy.'

In addition to the Indiana and 'Mac' George McHale (Ray Winstone) team, a new character literally develops before our eyes. Greaser Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf) begs for Indy's help in locating his mother (played by Karen Allen) somewhere in the depths of South America. This is while Indy is fleeing from the KGB, which is hot on his trail for information on the mysterious body in the warehouse at Roswell—it may seem far-fetched (in Indiana Jones? Nooo.) but it does come together when the man-and-boy duo reach the dusty town in Peru where they will get ever closer to Indy's beloved colleague Professor Oxley (John Hurt), who is also lost in the jungle somewhere in his own mysterious search to find the Crystal Skull…the secret behind legendary El Dorado, that infamous city made of gold.

Real stunt-work rather than computer-aided graphic effects hold true to the tradition of the Indiana Jones trilogy while catering to that innocent style of Jones's persona. The misty outline of light around a fedora-topped silhouette, the creepy crawlies, the fancy whip-work, and the fabulous jumping off of one thing to land perfectly on another before or after swinging on a rope from place to place are in keeping with the Cirque de Soleil of the physical gymnastics of the Indiana Jones we, as a global community of movie-goers, have come to know and love.

In summary: almost three decades after the first Indiana Jones made an appearance on the big screen (Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark if any of you might have by any chance forgotten but I wouldn't admit it to anyone around you), this film just goes to show they've still got it. And, of course, snakes to boot.

Star rating: ****