It's too bad that "I'm getting too old for this ----" wasn't a catchphrase from the "Indiana Jones" movies, but in fact from that other '80s franchise, the "Lethal Weapon" movies. Because, as I dragged myself out to Star Cinema last night for the 12:01 a.m. showing of "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," that phrase was on my middle-aged (EARLY-middle-aged) mind.

I expected that fellow Gen-Xers would be out in force to see the first "Indy" movie in 19 years, but for the most part the full house was the usual midnight-crowd -- groups of college-age kids, mostly boys. Where was the franchise's key demo, the ones like me who saw "Raiders" in the theater when they were in junior high school?

Oh, that's right. They were IN BED. They had families. They had jobs. They had lives.

Well, I had all of the above too, except that the family includes a very understanding wife and the job includes the chance to go to midnight movies and write about the experience. My biggest fear, frankly, was that "Crystal Skull" was going to be like the "Star Wars" prequels. In 1999, I saw "Phantom Menace" at midnight at the Orpheum, and I heard a sound I had never heard before or since. It was the sound of 1,600 people trying really, really hard to enjoy themselves, and just falling short.

Thankfully, that wasn't the case with "Indy 4" -- about the best thing I can say about it was that I wasn't the slightest bit tired during the two-hour running time, and came out of the theater at 2:24 a.m. pleasantly jazzed up. It's no "Raiders" -- "Raiders" wouldn't be "Raiders" if it came out today -- but it stands up well with the two sequels, probably better than the needlessly dark "Temple of Doom."

In tone, it's much more similar to the jokey and sentimental "Last Crusade," heavy on the humor and character interaction, and almost benign when it comes to the violence. (No melting Nazi faces here.) The action scenes are generally exciting and inventive, from the opening smash-up derby inside Area 51 to a rip-roaring jeep chase through the Amazon rainforest. It's preposterous, but with such an infectious charm that you find yourself more forgiving than you expect. When two characters duel with swords standing on the hoods of parallel 65-mile-an-hour jeeps, you grin and think, "Sure, why not?"

But for me, as good as the early action is, "Crystal Skull" doesn't really get rolling until Indy meets up with his new sidekick Mutt (Shia LaBoeuf as a '50s greaser). LaBoeuf and Ford have terrific chemistry together, and watching them banter as they poke through one subterranean crypt after another (full of those gloriously fake cobwebs) is a kick.

As for Ford, he's been getting grumpier and grumpier with every film for some reason, so in some ways the film's biggest surprise is that he's able to recapture the loose Indy charm again. The grin he sports when he reconnects with Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen) is delightful, and as the duo slip into their old bantering ways, "Skull" comes as close as it's ever gonna get to the pinnacle that is "Raiders."

There's some unnecessarily goofy humor -- monkeys and groundhogs doing double-takes? What is this, "Zoboomafoo"? -- that seems skewed a little too young for a 30-year-old franchise, and the use of CGI in general gets a little distracting. But I found myself in a more forgiving mood that I might expect, given in what high regard I held the original movies.

It turns out another "Indy" movie was a pretty good idea after all, and I wouldn't mind a bit if they decided to make another one. I might even go see it at midnight.

Did you see it? Are you gonna? What did you think?