Short version: go see it.

Longer version: I got invited to a preview of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on Tuesday night, two days before the movie's official opening. (Apparently I'm important. Who knew?)

Since I promised to take Mom to see it for Mother's Day, and since she was willing to go, we went. This is like the first time in six years that everyone I know hasn't seen a movie before I did, so I'm being extra careful not to give away anything. (I just read Wired's mini-review, and I'm not linking it here because it contains things that I would consider spoilers and that would have made parts of it less enjoyable for me. So don't read that before you see it. The reviewer's rating is 7/10, if you wonder.)

The movie, however, is tremendous fun. Nothing can ever match your memory of the first time through a great movie, so I clearly remember people saying that Temple of Doom and Last Crusade were "no Raiders." And they were right. And Kingdom of the Crystal Skull isn't Raiders, either.

But if you liked Last Crusade, you're going to like Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, unless the only reason you liked Last Crusade was Sean Connery, who only appears in this movie in a still photograph (similar to Denholm Elliott, "Marcus Brody," who passed away in 2002).

This is a rollicking good romp. Yes, you can see a couple of things coming a few minutes ahead, and the structure is familiar to some other Indiana Jones movies, and the movie critics will find plenty of ways to pick on it for not meeting their imagination. But it was everything I wanted in an Indiana Jones movie. I would have bought a ticket just to see Harrison Ford put on the fedora again, even if nothing else happened, but I enjoyed just about every minute of this movie. I laughed at all the jokes, I winced at the gross moments, and the things I saw coming were coming because they had to be that way or it wouldn't be an Indiana Jones movie.

If you know much about Raiders of the Lost Ark, you've heard the story about how Steven Spielberg wanted to open a movie with a shot of a mountain that exactly matched the Paramount logo. Remember that as you see the start of this film, and go from there. None of it is any less plausible than the key plot points of the other movies, and like those, this one was thoroughly enjoyable. Go see it.