Frankly, I can’t imagine any circumstance where Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull would have been received well universally. I purposefully avoided all the pre-release reviews so that I wouldn’t be tainted by any predetermined buzz be it positive or negative.

Good thing too, because reading a lot of internet posters, one would think that everybody’s favourite fedora clad hero spends two hours and two minutes sipping martinis in New York with fashion-minded ladies before rolling off in the Mach 5 to put on a super suit of armour to fight Afghan terrorists. Bottom line: to call this Indiana Jones is an affront to all those even remotely connected to trilogy of films made in the 80s.

But honestly, time doesn’t stand still and why should Indy? Nineteen years have come to pass since Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and so it goes with Kingdom, which takes place in 1957. To a certain degree, this Indy is more pulpy than its predecessors and definitely inspired more by sci-fi B-movies from the 50s than the 30s serials the series borrowed from in the previous three outings.

The jury is out on how successful the new tone is integrated into the Indy mythos, but what is undeniable is that Spielberg still knows action and he executes the major sequences in this movie with tremendous energy and enthusiasm.

And best of all, Kingdom brings back the Harrison Ford we all know and love. Something about the man’s recent work has been lacking, for he’s had the appearance of a man sleepwalking through every scene, seemingly bored as if experiencing déjà vu. Ford hasn’t been this energetic since he told Gary Oldman to get off his plane as the Ass-kicking President in Air Force One.

He’s suffered through putting on a bad Russian accent (K-19: The Widowmaker), a stolid attempt at buddy comedy action (Hollywood Homicide) and playing the threatened father for the millionth time (Firewall). Here, he gets his just desserts. Ford so easily puts on the Indy suit once again 19 years seem barely 19 minutes. The worn look, the resigned voice, the rough and tumble, take a beating-give a beating attitude – it’s all there.

With so much working for it, it’s unfortunate that the story chosen for Kingdom nearly pulls the whole effort asunder. It’s no secret that a laundry list of screenwriters gave Indy IV a whirl before the current screenplay by David Koepp was cobbled together. In a circumstance like this, the danger is that the final film will feel like a patchwork quilt as the individual elements that worked in various scripts are brought together into a single entity.

Unfortunately, Kingdom falls into the trap and anytime the action stops what we get is a lot of lengthy exposition that reveals a complicated plot underneath all the hype and hokum.

The story begins in a very familiar warehouse in Nevada that contains all the US government’s secrets, says Jones’ nemesis Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett), a Russian agent with psychic abilities. The Russians have stormed this USAF base posed as American soldiers, they pull Indy and his war buddy Mac (Ray Winstone) out of the trunk of one of the cars.

Spalko’s goal is to find a magnetic box, the contents of which were discovered in Roswell in 1947 and examined by, amongst others, Dr. Henry Jones Jr. This is somehow connected to a missing crystal skull from a temple in Peru, the person that returns it is promised untold power.

The core problem with the whole crystal skull thing is that it requires too much extemporaneous discussion just in order to explain everyone’s desire for it. Unlike the Ark of the Covenant or the Holy Grail, the objective isn’t simple. Be it the power of God or the promise of eternal life, people know what those are and what it is that they do, so the characters don’t have to stop every little mile to remind the audience why we care.

More than that, much of the film’s second half drags, pretty much everything after Indy and the gang find the temple is loose and nearly incoherent. It’s a testament to Spielberg’s ability as a storyteller that he was mostly able to overcome the real weakness of this MacGuffin.

The actors work though. One doesn’t need a spoiler tell you that Shia LaBeouf’s greaser ‘Mutt’ is really Henry Jones III and LaBeouf manages to not make the role a total loss. Obviously some people are going to hate teaming up Indy with a young punk sidekick, but the chemistry between Ford and LaBeouf as partners-in-crime is great and they’re given a lot of room to develop it.

The other worst kept secret is the return of Karen Allen as Raiders love interest, Marion Ravenwood. Allen was the first and the best and she hasn’t changed a bit since 1981, almost like she was the one that drank from the cup of everlasting life.

Naturally there’s a lot of nostalgia in Kingdom. The return of Marion is best summed up by Indy himself. “None of them were you, honey,” is what he says when Marion asks why it never worked out with any of the other women and we all know it’s true and the Marion was the only woman for Indy. And she’s introduced perfectly in a scene recalling some of her spunkier moments in Raiders.

There is a nice tip of the hat to Denholm Elliot and Sean Connery. Connery of course passed up the opportunity to return having retired from acting, but Elliot died in 1992. It’s a simple scene in which one of Indy’s colleagues (played by Jim Broadbent in Elliot’s typical role) remarks of they’re at the point where life takes more than it gives; really quite effective.

There’s also a neat little nod to the Young Indiana Jones TV series that I enjoyed.

Still though, when Kingdom doesn’t work it’s kind of galling. There’s a sequence where Mutt saves Indy from quick sand by tossing him a rope, rather, a snake and Indy’s kind of pathetic, girlish demand that they find something else or call it a “rope.” Of course, this scene just fills the need to re-introduce the character’s fear of snakes in an implausible and overly exaggerated fashion, that is.

Also, the constant reinforcement of the fact that film is set in the 50s got on my nerves. There’s a drag race to the tune of Elvis’ “Hound Dog” at the beginning, anti-Communist fervour, and my personal favourite, when Spalko asks if Indy has any last words, he responds, “I like Ike.”

But ultimately Indy works more often than it does not. I liked the return of Indy and Marion, Indy and Mutt’s motorcycle chase through Marshall College, even the psychic agents and, surprisingly, the Nuke Town sequence.

But I really liked a lot of the dialogue surrounding “Colonel Jones’” war record and time served in the OSS (the CIA precursor), working as a double-agent in Berlin and such. I hope that story comes out as a novel or comic sometime. I also liked the final scene, even though it had the tacked on, happy ending quality of The Simpsons’ “lost ending” to Casablanca, because it gave every boy who ever wanted to be Indy a little wink and a nod.

The haters will hat no matter what because that’s what they do. For the vast majority of us though, I think this will stand as a satisfactory to good Indiana Jones adventure; Different by necessity, but still worthy of sitting on the shelf next to the previous three chapters. For the open-minded only.