Indiana Jones

Action films these days are nothing more than special-effects-laden excuses to spend money to make money, hoping audiences will see past the lack of character development or plot to plop down their hard-earned dollars for empty entertainment.

So to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is to immerse yourself into something that feels like worthwhile pop entertainment, a rollercoaster ride of the senses, an escape from the earth-bound concerns of life.

You are transported and thus reminded of the reasons why you started going to the movies in the first place.

Steven Spielberg is a master of this, though oftentimes clumsy and not at all poetic. But you don't go to an Indiana Jones movie for poetry. You go to see that fedora and that whip and his wild adventures to find gnarly treasure.

In 1981, with Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Spielberg and George Lucas created a new template for blockbuster movies, grabbing your attention from the first frame and not letting go until the very end. Jones was a rough-and-tumble archeologist who loved field research, the ones where he ran from big rolling rocks and ducked bullets with a wink of his eye and a smirk on his face. And he had his female students swooning enough that one had the words "love you" etched on her eyelids.

In this third sequel, 19 years in the making, Harrison Ford is back in his iconic role, his face bearing the weathered look of the 65-year-old man he is today. Don't fret. Ford eases back into character and cracks his whip with the same snap as he did when Indiana Jones first burst on the scene in 1981.

This time, he's just narrowly escaped from his new enemies, the Communists (the movie is set in 1957, and the Nazis are long gone), and he comes back to his job as a professor only to find he has been fired. Preparing to go on a long vacation, Jones bumps into Mutt Williams, ably played by hot-new talent Shia Lebouf, who tells him about a long-lost colleague, Professor Oxley.

Jones and Williams, a greaser given to sliding a coke-drenched comb through his hair, head to Peru to start looking for Oxley and the mystery behind the Crystal Skull, an artifact that might maintain the keys to other-worldly knowledge. The Russians are after the skull as well.

Near escapes and gunfights ensue, and in the middle of all this, Marian Ravenwood, Mutt's mother and Jones' one-time lover from the Raiders of the Lost Ark days, returns, wanting to slap and kiss Jones all at the same time.

Spielberg crafts his action set pieces with panache, a brilliant mix of hilarity and tingly suspense. Jones hasn't lost his wit, and Lebouf infuses the film with a nice youthful energy.

The special-effects don't overwhelm the movie, although there is one vine-swinging scene that looks awfully fake. The story doesn't make much sense, with lots of X-Files mumbo-jumbo, but who cares.

This is all about adventure and love and the space between the spaces. Here, we look for magic, and Spielberg gives it to us in abundance, the movie never really dragging even if it goes for more than two hours.

You find yourself lost in another world, hoping you never have to come back.