Indiana Jones returns to the big screen for a fourth time in the good but not great Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull.

“This probably feels familiar to you,” icy Russian agent Irina Spalko tells her prisoner, respected professor/daring adventurer Dr. Henry “Indiana” Jones Jr., at the beginning of the long-awaited Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, directed by Steven Spielberg and produced by George Lucas. She’s right: it does. Once again, our fedora-wearing, whip-cracking hero is in a tight spot, outmanned and outgunned with his own life—not to mention America’s safety—hanging in the balance. But even though the circumstances are familiar, Dr. Jones himself is not…at least, not right away. It’s been nineteen years since we saw Indiana ride off into the sunset at the end of The Last Crusade and time has definitely left its mark on him. His hair is grayer, his waist thicker and his movements are slower and more deliberate than the man we saw scrambling away a giant stone ball over two decades ago. You can’t help but feel a little guilty critiquing Indy’s (and, by extension, Harrison Ford’s) sixty-something physique—after all, it’s not like he asked to age—but let’s face it: the biggest obstacle facing the new Indiana Jones film is the actor’s age. Would he still be believable raiding tombs and fighting Nazis (or, in this case, Soviets) or should this film have been titled Indiana Jones and the Search for the Florida Retirement Community?

The good news is that once you get over the shock of seeing Indiana looking so world-weary and…well, old, Ford busts out his defiant sneer and completely becomes the character you remember from Raiders of the Lost Ark, Temple of Doom and The Last Crusade. Indiana’s body may have aged, but his quick mind and uncanny ability to improvise an escape in the face of impossible odds are as reliable as ever. Needless to say, it isn’t long before he escapes Irina’s clutches and takes out a sizeable number of her henchmen in the process. Unfortunately, he isn’t able to stop her from making off with her prize: a mysterious box that contains the body of what could be some kind of extraterrestrial being. (And that obvious reference to E.T. is one of many homages to Spielberg and Lucas’ past work—look closely and you’ll also spot shout-outs to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, American Graffiti, A New Hope and Poltergeist.) Because of his presence at the scene of the crime—which occurred at an American military base referred to as Hanger 51—Indy becomes a person of interest to the Soviet-hating FBI. Despite his decorated service record from World War II, Indy is marked as a suspected Commie and subsequently finds himself out of a job and, possibly, out of a home. The idea of Indiana Jones as a man whose time has passed is a potent one and one that Spielberg and Lucas mine for much of the first half of movie. One of the film’s most striking, if improbable, shots shows Indy standing beneath an enormous nuclear-generated mushroom cloud—a dwarf in the shadow of the atomic age.

But then a young motorcycle-riding greaser named Mutt Williams (Shia LaBeouf) enters the story and Crystal Skull turns into another globetrotting adventure that takes Indiana to creepy underground caverns filled with deadly booby traps and lush jungles populated by restless natives and dangerous animals in pursuit of a priceless artifact. This particular relic is the titular crystal cranium, an actual bit of archeological phenomena that dates back to Aztec times. The Russians want it because Irina believes it holds the key to an entirely new kind of warfare—one where her armies will be able to conquer the minds of their enemies before opening fire. Indy initially wants it so that the Russians won’t get it, but then a mental “conversation” with the skull entrusts him with a new mission—return it to the fabled Lost City of Gold from whence it came. Aiding him in that mission are an old colleague, Professor Oxley (John Hurt) and his former flame (and Mutt’s mother) Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen). And if you haven’t already figured out from all the blatant clues that Mutt is Indy’s son than you’re as clueless as he is.

Before watching Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, I made a point of going back to see Raiders, Indy’s first and best adventure. Even on the small screen, what stands out about that film is its relentless pace. There are few lulls and every action sequence is not only a blast to watch, but also pushes the narrative forward. That’s an increasing rarity in modern blockbuster spectacles, where the big set-pieces usually interrupt the flow of the movie instead of feeding into it. The later Indiana Jones adventure are somewhat guilty of this as well, but Crystal Skull is the first one where a significant number of the fight and flight scenes don’t really feel necessary. That’s not to say that they aren’t a lot of fun—on the contrary, they’re more imaginatively staged than anything in Iron Man. As an example of what I’m trying to get at, let’s look at an early scene where Mutt and Indy speed through the streets of New Haven with two Soviet gunmen on their heels. On its own terms this scene is a blast to watch; Ford and LaBeouf play off each other quite well and Spielberg adds some inventive roadblocks to the traditional chase sequence structure. But there’s no compelling narrative reason for this chase to take place—in fact, it essentially stops the story in its tracks.

Then again, given how uneven the story is, that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Although David Koepp is credited with writing the screenplay, the script passed through a number of hands on its way to the big screen and the finished product often feels like a patchwork of several different drafts. The first half of the film in particular lumbers around as it strains to establish the Mutt/Indy relationship, introduce the concept of the crystal skulls and then sends the adventurers off into the middle of the Amazon. Once the gang is on the run in the jungle though, the pacing improves considerably. The film’s centerpiece is a wild rainforest car chase that involves front-hood sword fights, vine-swinging monkeys and carnivorous red ants. All this climaxes with our heroes plunging down not just one, but three giant waterfalls on their way to the fabled golden city. I expect there to be a lot of disagreement about the last half-hour of the movie, which spins the Indy saga off into overtly science-fiction territory. Personally, I wasn’t bothered by this change in direction—I just wish it didn’t feel so rushed and clunky. It’s a bad sign when the audience walks out of the theater not entirely certain what just happened.

And now we arrive at the million-dollar question: is Crystal Skull worth the nineteen-year wait? The answer is a resounding yes…and no. Once my initial skepticism wore off, I completely enjoyed my long-awaited (and long-dreaded) reunion with Indy. After a long string of sub-par performances in terrible movies, Ford finally seems to be enjoying himself again. The same goes for Spielberg, who seizes the opportunity to lighten up after the dour one-two punch of War of the Worlds and Munich. Even when the screenplay stumbles, the movie plunges ahead with a confidence and swagger that can only come from a director and star that are truly working in sync. The supporting cast, from Blanchett to Allen, gets into the spirit of the enterprise as well. And I can’t imagine any Raiders fan not feeling satisfied by the film’s final scene, which sends Indy and Marion off on an entirely new adventure (let’s just say that an exchange of rings is involved).

All that said, I would have felt just as satisfied if Crystal Skull had never been made and our last glimpse of Indiana Jones would have forever remained that sun-dappled closing shot from The Last Crusade. Even though I’d rank the film as the third best in the series—behind Raiders and Crusade but ahead of Temple—there are some significant problems here that will probably grow more pronounced on further viewings, when the nostalgic thrill has worn off. I’m also concerned that Lucas and Spielberg have revived Indy just so they can launch a whole new franchise on the back of young Mr. LaBeouf—they even hint as much with a concluding gag that finds Mutt picking up Indy’s weather-beaten fedora. Much as I liked LaBeouf’s performance, I don’t think Mutt has the right mix of gravitas and gumption to carry the series on his own. Besides, we go to an Indiana Jones movie to see Indiana Jones, not his rebellious offspring. In some ways, his character is one of the weak spots of Crystal Skull; the filmmakers are clearly trying to replicate the Sean Connery/Harrison Ford dynamic from Last Crusade, but the central joke of that movie was that Indy is always reduced to the status of a child whenever his dad is around. It’s less funny when he takes on the role of the father figure…as we already know from Temple of Doom.

So to sum up: despite its many flaws, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is an enjoyable romp that does no harm to the character’s legacy. It may not be a film that needed to be made, but it has been made and it doesn’t suck. And at the end of the day, that’s the only thing that matters.