I love Indiana Jones and the previous movies—Raiders of the Lost Ark is my favorite movie. I love his confidence and capability. I love that these are modernized 1930s/1940s movie serials. I love that Indy is a skeptic even in the face of dramatic mystical events. I love that Indy has his simple flaws (snakes) and his major ones. But. . . .

One thing that the previous movies had that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull didn't touch on was that Archeology was Indy's religion, and somewhere late in the plot there would be at least one moment where Indy had to chose between his "religion" and his friends, and this time of choice is clearly a struggle for him. Several times in history, Indy was clearly about to make the wrong choice even though he knew it was wrong and there would be no going back.

It's an important moment for Indy as a character, because as confident and capable as he is, he can be *this close* to being exactly the same as his nemesis throughout the movie until he makes this choice. And his father was the same way, but in his own way. In this new movie, Indy never had to struggle with the "obvious" choices of his "religion" (save the artifact!) versus a more immediate good (save your friend!), and neither did Mutt.

I wasn't a fan of the aliens, but I could suck it up and go with it. The lack of an ethical and moral choice between self-perceived duty and "the right thing" is where this movie fails for me.

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