I was entertained after I realized that it was, in fact, crystal.

So this afternoon the fam and I went to see Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. I walked in expecting, nay, desiring to hate this movie. It had all the characteristics of a movie I should hate: it was a long-awaited and totally unnecessary sequel, it was a 4th, it had Shia LaBeouf, it was totally unrealistic, it involved swordfights on moving vehicles, and it was about aliens although it claimed they weren't aliens. All in all, it should have been utterly insufferable and I should have given it Josh Gibbs' ultimate insult (that is, walking out 10 minutes before the end). But it wasn't. I was entertained. No, more, I enjoyed it. Harrison Ford is convincing as an old man. I don't think any actor of this day other than Sean Connery can so effortlessly pull this off. We all know Bruce Willis can't, Samuel L. Jackson can't, and I can't stand to watch Pierce Brosnan try. For the first time, I didn't just respect Indy, I loved that dude. When Shia's character said, "You're a teacher!?" I was like, "Dude, I was thinking the exact same thing!" But I had to get past the nuclear blast survival, the constantly missing KGB machine gun fire, the fact that aliens landed with the Incas and yet they were beaten by a few freaking Spaniards, etc. When they first see the crystal skull (which turns out to be the actual skull of an actual alien or, as one of Indy's colleagues says, 'a trans-dimensional being'), we are told by the man himself that it is quartz crystal, cut across the grain, which is apparently impossible by human methods. It would have been all to easy for me to hear, "it looks like crystal but it . . . just isn't." But it was crystal. Once you realized that these beings who were all-powerful, all-knowing, and were stinkin architectural geniuses using stone age tools, had bones made out of quartz, just like what's under our feet, you had the movie in your grasp. And after that, army ants devouring a guy in 3 seconds flat is icing on the cake. And did I mention Cate Blanchett has a black bob haircut? Anytime I can see Elizabeth I dressed up like some twisted sort of archetypal Gestapo torturess, complete with knee-high leather boots, it's worth 6 of the coldest.

Overall rating: 7.5 out of 10
Watch for: A scattered bad word or two, lots of bloodless violence (typical Indy style: fists and . . . well, fists), and the realization on a younger person's face that Indy had a child before he was married.