All of these concerns aside, there are plenty of reasons to be excited about the movie. With Ford donning the fedora, Spielberg wearing his directing beret and Lucas assuming story and producing duties, all of the major creative forces behind the series have returned. While a worrying number of screenwriters were involved with the script, they are all obscenely talented to writers who would have contributed brilliant ideas. Shea LeBeouf may be an unproven commodity, but all of the other additions to the cast are brilliant performers: Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Jim Broadbent, and most impressively Cate Blanchett (playing an evil Russian spy/dominatrix no less) have all signed on and none of them are capable of giving bad performances. Even Karen Allen—easily Indy’s most appealing love interest—will be returning to the series for the first time since Raiders Of The Lost Ark. The movie may not be a sure thing (well, artistically anyways. Good or bad this movie will make an insane amount of money), but it is certainly something to be excited about.

Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull will face some pretty hefty audience expectations when it finally explodes onto screens on May 22. The filmmakers have their work cut out for them to make the movie play and there are many good reasons for them to fail. But, with the talent involved and the built-in audience investment for such an iconic character, there is just as much cause for hope as there is for worry. Until the images are flickering on a giant screen at 24 frames per second there is no way of actually knowing if the movie will be good or not. For now all anyone can do is watch this trailer and either get excited or panic accordingly. -P.B., NewsExtensions.com