The Thing About Indiana Jones is...

It's entertainment. It's adventure. It's a movie.

With the popularity of reality television shows and instantaneous need for celebrity news, we have lost the excitement of our own imagination. We used to go to movies and leave reality at the door, along with our preconceived notions and little knowledge of what we were about to see. Now, we know everything and we don't care and we whisper to our neighbor how ridiculous that scene is or how expensive the popcorn is. Ok, the popcorn is ridiculously expensive, but no other popcorn in the world tastes the same.

Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is no exception. A few weeks ago, I had a long talk with a friend of mine about the film before either of us had seen it. We discussed how we didn't want a quick reference to the death of Indiana Jones Sr. (Sean Connery), we didn't want an appearance of strange CG aliens, and we didn't want Shia LeBouf to ruin the franchise. We also talked about all the things we'd like to see. Adventure, comedic one-liners, innovative chases, references to the other movies.

Were some of the things I didn't want to see in the movie? Yes. Were some of the things I did want to see in the movie. You betcha. Did the positive outweigh the negative? Without a doubt. The thing about Indiana Jones is that it is a great thrill ride. It's not trying to change the world. It's not trying to win Best Picture (and it won't). But it is hoping to entertain you in that summer-blockbuster kind of way. And it does.