I am not a movie expert, but I am a movie snob, and that's all the credentials you need to make a good critic.

My most recent bout of cinema snobbery came when I went to see the midnight premier of Indiana Jones 4. Quick-witted readers will observe that making the midnight premier is a decidedly fanboy thing to do, and I am a self-proclaimed Indy Jones fanboy. In fact, I am the number one Indy Jones fan, except for maybe the two kids in the theater wearing leather fedoras and Jones T-shirts.

So, okay, I'm the number one Indy Fan who also has a social life. Anyway....

Before I go on, I guess the requisite SPOILER WARNING is at hand. However, I will do my best not to reveal all but the most minor of plot points.

The first thing to be said, of course, is Indy is OLD! I'm talkin' ancient. Since Air Force One and now, Harrison Ford must have been chilling in a humidor day and night chomping big fat rich old guy cigars. Although he pulls off some minor stunts himself (where the viewer can see it's obviously not a double) with relative grace, ol' Indy mostly saunters around with that aching-joint gait the same as your grandpa. His hind quarter isn't the cut-from-quartz lady magnet it used to be, and he's carrying considerable weight around the midsection.

Mind you, I do not consider this inherently a bad thing. In fact, Ford's admittedly flabby physique sort of lends him the aire of the tough grandfather figure who is mostly embittered by the way 'kids' are doin' things these days, but can still bust some heads from time to time with impressive agility. The problem with the script (written by the equally old and insane George Lucas), is that it casts Ford as the 'father figure' rather than the 'grandfather figure' and incessently seeks to remind the audience that Indy is a badass superhuman with, somehow, more 'super' power and toughness than he had in his late 20's-early 30's adventures from the first three films.

Yes, we all know experience goes a long way, but eventually time and frail bones can force even the wisest grandpa to take a seat, and this is what Ford should have been doing most of the time in this film. Watching, mentoring, researching, and busting heads when the situation absolutely calls for it.

Loyal readers (all one of you) might scoff and say 'but Indy has to be a badass! He has to bust heads!'. I respectfully disagree. Indy does pretty much nothing but bust heads in this installment which only serves to expose his frail form to scrutinizing eyes. If the script could have used some restraint and directed Indy to bust heads from time to time, in brief intervals instead of pretty much throughout the entire film, I believe the audience could have appreciated it more and it would have fooled viewers into thinking that Ford really is the wily, agile old man hiding a big stick.

All the head-busting in the film falls in familiar Indy Jones territory to the point of, at times, feeling very rehashed. Ie, in this installment, we have not one, but several scenes of Indy hijacking a vehicle by whip-swinging in and punching the bad guy driving in the face and/or smashing said guy's head into the steering column, de ja vu remaniscent of carjacking antics throughout the first three films.

The other problem with the otherwise impressive and exciting action of the movie is its entirely-too-frequent forays into Looney Toons territory. If there was anyone left on the planet that didn't think George Lucas is a nut, this movie will convert even the most adherent Church of Star Wars fanboys. I will give this one SPOILER: near the very beginning of the flim, Indy finds himself in the middle of a nuclear testing site with mere seconds to escape before a bomb strikes dead center where he's standing. His solution is not to run or drive a car out of the scene, but rather to hop inside of a refrigerator at ground zero, close it up, and use it as some kind of rocketship to ride the wave of debris out of the danger zone. Logistical questions aside, like: wouldn't the refrigerator just have been vaporized by the blast?, this scene comes off as one of the most ridiculous moments in the entire film. While everything else in the vicinity of the blast is melting and being obliterated into slivers, Indy's Fridge-Rocket 5000 soars through the sky, coming to an enormous and spectacular crashing, rolling halt that no one could have possibly survived.

But 90-year-old SuperIndy, apparently having found the Lazarus Pit sometime in the late 40's, survives without so much as a broken bone, or conveniently, radiation poisoning.

This scene is just a barometer for the silliness to come, which I won't mention any more of. The point is, in all the previous Indy movies, Jones and company survived by the skin of their teeth on several occassions by long-shot maguyver scenarios that were at least somewhat plausible. But not here, lordy no, Crazy old man Lucas decided to turn my beloved, fallible hero into an X-Man with immortal powers.

The saddest part about Indy's new-found superheroism is that it steals screen time and importance away from Shea Le PooPoo, who while normally obnoxious, seems in his element in this film and could have been set up perfectly to take up the Indy reigns.

On the story side of things, this Jones installment falls flat of all the predecessors with the possible exception of Temple of Doom. Oddly, while the film chooses to stick formulaically to the impressive-but-now-cliched big-budget adventure movie setpieces that the original Jones movie immortalized, this one departs in all the wrong ways from the Jones story mold.

I won't reveal much, suffice to say that while all the Indiana Jones movies had a mild supernatural bent, usually coming to life sometime in the end of the film, this latest (and reportedly last) installment goes way out to the Twilight Zone and it's all the worse for it. That, and old people kiss in this movie, and that's just gross.

Is this film a fun watch? Yes. Will it inevitably be a summer blockbuster? Of course. But I really can't help but wonder, after reportedly in-fighting with Lucas constantly over the script, which Spielberg evidently dissaproved of, why he didn't walk away from this project.

The answer is probably the same as the cause and solution to most problems: money. And this, my friends, is where I draw the connection to gaming.

I believe the world is at a crossroads. It's me, you, Indy, and Playstation 3. We are at the tipping point where even the best guys, the most artful, the most ardent, the most staunchly independent and quality-driven men in all industries in the world are bowing to the power of the Dollar and cranking out product with no heart and no brain to appease a rabid audience that instead of shouting loudly and rioting in the streets, simply brushes off their own being used with a shrug of the shoulder and a collective "meh.. maybe next time"