Indy belongs to the past (Spielberg drew his inspiration from the adventure serials of the 1930s), as his very occupation, archaeologist, suggests. The '60s are just around the corner and now, like the stuff he pulls out of the earth, he's a relic.
There is no place in the future for the snap brim hat. Even the villains are new - out with the Nazis, in with the Cold War and the KGB. A Russian agent (Cate Blanchett, drawing her accent from Natasha in "Rocky and Bullwinkle") has kidnapped Indy, and forced him to provide the location of a mysterious mummy stored in a government warehouse (the same one, by the looks of things, that houses the Ark of the Covenant).
The heroes are new, too - Indy acquires an adventure-seeking apprentice named Henry (Shia LaBeouf) who shows up wearing Marlon Brando's duds from "The Wild One," and riding his motorcycle.
Elderly Indy's merely a passenger when they dodge the KGB and make their way, eventually, to South America, where Indy helps Henry rescue a missing professor (John Hurt) who holds the location to a valuable artifact sought by the Soviets.
It's a running joke in the movie that Hurt's character suffers from come-and-go dementia. We suspect there's method to his madness, that underneath it all, the old guy knows what he's doing.
The same spirit seems to have motivated Ford, Spielberg, and producer George Lucas. Their movie is one big wink at the baby boomer audience, full of jokes about creaky bones, and just as full of determination to show that they can still get it done.
And for a while, they do. The opening action salvos are fun, and so is Ford's on-camera reunion with Karen Allen, displaying the spunk that made her unforgettable in "Raiders of the Lost Ark."
