Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

It’s 1957, and that archaeologist with the whip and the fedora is back—and feeling his age (though Harrison Ford looks great). Indy’s gone from fighting Nazis to Commies (Cate Blanchett with a severe black wig and a chewy Russian accent), he’s picked up a new sidekick (a leather-jacketed biker rebel played by Shia LaBeouf) and Karen Allen is back (and welcome) from the original Raiders of the Lost Ark. The crystal skull of the title is a token of extraterrestrial technology that leads Indy and the others to a lost city in South America, with a full program of expected derring-do. True, the stunts were more exciting when they were all real rather than computer-generated, but the audacity and profusion of the series are undimmed, the streak of larky comedy as wide as ever.