Just saying the name brings a big smile to my face. I was never going to hate this film, I could probably never even have disliked it. But does it live up to expectations? Let's see.
One thing I noticed that's pretty neat about the film is that it's set in 1957, 19 years after The Last Crusade. This means there's no need to rationalize why Indiana Jones seems to have aged 19 years because Harrison Ford has. This also means the Nazis can't be villains any more, so we get Cold War era Russians instead, which is fine by me. The opening is suitably overblown and pushes the boundaries of believability. So no problems there.
In terms of believability, the film only really pushes things too far with the vine swinging scene and the scene where Marion drives a truck off the edge of a cliff only to have a tree bend down and deposit the conveniently amphibious vehicle into a river. I could find at least half a dozen ways the latter could've gone wrong, likely creating a sketch worthy of Robot Chicken. These were really stretches that were probably not necessary. The film could've been better without them.
The characters are pretty good. Shia LaBeouf doesn't irritate as many people thought he might, and I'd be reasonably interested in seeing more stuff about him (which seems fortunate as there are plans for that). Cate Blanchett does well as the villain, but doesn't quite seem as memorable as some of the earlier villains to me, still good work though. It's good to see Karen Allen back though, she did shine in Raiders of the Lost Ark and does so again here. The others fill their roles well without making a huge impression on me, but one thing I immediately wondered is why Sean Connery didn't reprise his role as Indiana's father. He was apparently enjoying retirement too much, and I have to agree that it was a good thing in the end. We'd all just be disappointed that he never came along for the adventure. Incidentally, Sean Connery is only 12 years older than Harrison Ford. I guess time has had drastically different effects on them...
The plot, all about aliens and stuff, seemed rather unusual to me. I know the supernatural has always been a fairly big part of the Indiana Jones films, but the switch from religion to extra-terrestrials seemed a bit jarring to me. Still, I found it fairly easy to put that out of my mind and just enjoy the film for what it was. The special effects were what really stole the show, and I thought they were pretty well done. Overuse of CG is probably a valid criticism, but they felt thrilling to me and that's all that matters really.
So, overall rating? Well it set out to be an Indiana Jones film, and I think it mostly succeeded. Not up to the level of its predecessors, but worthy nonetheless.
8/10