"Indiana Jones" has filmgoer wishing for more

Okay, I'll admit when I heard there was another "Indian Jones" film in the works, I was excited and concerned at the same time.

I was excited because, even though the original trilogy is a little faded in my memory, I thoroughly enjoyed the Indy adventures. I was concerned because — well, do you remember the last time Harrison Ford made a really, really good film? I can answer that — "Air Force One" (1997). I saw that opening night on my birthday. I wasn't completely sure Ford, who used to be one of my all-time favorite actors, could gain all that momentum back from the past that he's seemed to have lost in the last few years.

But that old charisma shined in "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." I saw the film this weekend and was pretty pleased even through some of the movie's hokey moments. My friend and I did lament a little over the whole — SPOILER ALERT — alien theme. Why couldn't George Lucas find something else to build a quest on — like a lost city or something archaeological? I have a fear of creatures from outerspace in flying saucers. It's their big eyes that scare me. Really.

Anyway, the film builds you up for the climax but lets you down a little when it's all about aliens and knowledge. I was hoping for masses of gold, a new glorious relic to put in a museum or the cure to cancer. Can't fiction films offer us something like that?

"Indiana Jones" is enjoyable to watch, though. It has me pumped that Ford will hopefully make another good film after this one. My fingers are crossed, but I won't be surprised if I'm disappointed. — January Holmes