ndiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull hits screens as something of an Indiana Jones' Greatest Hits, recycling sequences from the '80s trilogy, re-using globe-trotting, angry natives, high-speed vehicle chases, killer red ants, double-crosses and an artifact that will give its owner unspeakable power – and snakes! Oh, and Ford muttering "I've got a bad feeling about this" one more time.

While there's no question that this Indy production is first-rate, the skill honed and professional and the principals are indeed having a ball. The film begins with an in-joke reference to George Lucas's teen classic American Graffiti. A rumpled Jones - like the audience, he, too, is 19 years older - captured and forced to help Soviet bad guys find the location of a certain box in the endless warehouse we saw at the end of Raiders.

Indy and sidekick Mac (Ray Winstone) have been kidnapped by a Soviet military regiment disguised as US soldiers, and transported via car trunk to a nuclear facility in the New Mexico desert in order to assist in divulging top secrets. Supervising the Soviet infiltrators is sword-wielding Stalinist Irina Spalko (Cate Blanchett).

Indiana escapes (long story) and takes off for a new back-to-nature excellent adventure in search of the mythic omnipotent Crystal Skull - he is needed to help track down a crate in Area 51. One harrowing escape follows another as one of Indiana’s colleagues, Professor Oxley (John Hurt), has set out to find it and disappeared.