Despite over-plotting, inane dialogue and a cloying sense of deja-vu, the new Indiana Jones is still a great, rollicking romp, admirably helmed by the ageing Harrison Ford. Fasten your seatbelts, says Noel McAdam

Harrison Ford, Cate Blanchett, Karen Allen, Ray Winstone, John Hurt, Jim Broadbent, Shia LaBeouf

Indiana wants ye. Lord, you can go back there! With due apologies to R Dean Taylor, the first of the summer sequels is in — almost two decades after its predecessor.

A towering trio of movie archeologists have unearthed a long lost treasure — the Indiana Jones franchise.

And the titan threesome — no less than Harrison Ford, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas — once again prove themselves raiders of a lost art, the lost art in question being the ancient form of matinee movie cliff-hanger serials, which only the very first Indiana movie successfully recreated — though this is the closest since.

High on adventure, long on action it does exactly what it says on the Tindiana.

In terms of movies as theme park rides, you won't watch a much better romp at the pictures at present. And there are a few surprises, which I won't spill, or spoil, here.

Movies two and three spent too much time keeping up with the Joneses — not just his own younger self (played by the late River Pheonix) but of course the crusty old dad (Sean Connery). Here daddy's gone to that great expedition in the sky and Indy is centre-stage.

Fast forward 12 years after World War Two and we find him still on the battlefield, though now having to make do with the Cold War.

Things never get too sub-zero for our hot-headed hero, yet when he returns to his beloved Marshall College for his day job as an ordinary, and popular, teacher, he finds himself cold-shouldered.

The baddies are the Ruskies, which they still could be in the late 1950s and Indy, though badly let down by his trusted partner Mac (Winstone, mostly wasted) has just escaped their clutches, only to find the real enemy this time may come from within. And snazzy hats and a winning way with a bullwhip can't protect you against the combined evils of anti-communism and the American intelligence agencies. This is a case of spies being put out into the cold.

There are regular, and extended (sometimes over-extended) action sequences, including the special treat of a motorbike chase through the college, with Professor Jones, on the floor, still being questioned by eager students.

"If you wanna be an archeologist," he snarls, "you gotta get outta the library!"

At the pension age of 65, Ford is officially the oldest actor ever to star in an all-action epic. Clint Eastwood has continued appearing and making excellent films into his 70s, but they are hardly movies which require much in the way of stunt work; John Wayne had an outing at 69 in The Shootist, but it was also a slow-burner and the cancer-ridden Duke proved painful to watch.

The age issue — and from the first time you see Indy, silhouetted against a car door, it is an issue - is dealt with mostly by humour. As his youthful sidekick LaBeouf says: "What are you, like, 80?"

But despite his slightly too-square jaw and a small stiffening in some movements, Ford more than pulls it off, not least in his world-weary 'same old, same old' sigh, and 'it ain't as easy as it used to be'.

But Ford is also supported by a first-rate back-up cast, including John Hurt as a former childhood friend and former academic gone slightly mad; Karen Allen as the returning love of Indy's life, Marion Ravenwood (last seen in the first outing) and the superb Jim Broadbent as Indy's college boss forced to send him packing.

Best of all, however, is the versatile Ms Blanchett as all-over baddie Irano Spalko determined to uncover the mythical, pre-Mayan civilisation crystal skull whose mystical propensities will enable that nasty USSR to wrest control of the free world.

Indy, of course, has other ideas and having survived a nuclear test in a makeshift town populated entirely by mannequins (in a genius Spielberg moment he hides in a fridge) is still insisting: "I like Ike".

It is not American presidents or politics which are constantly referenced as much, however, as other movies, even down to the line about bringing a knife to a gunfight from The Untouchables and Butch Cassidy.

Young LaBeouf's continual preening of his hair is straight out of Marlon Brando and the Wild One — even other Lucas movies (when the cars pull up in the opening scene it is direct from American Graffiti) are in there.

Much of this is for nerds only but even the general audience won't miss out on the fact that Spielberg starts out making this third sequel to the original 1981 Raiders of the Lost Ark and ends up in ET and Close Encounters territory.

This you will either love, or it will throw you completely, especially when learned people start explaining others have gone to the "space between the spaces".

Also in the mix are some lead-piping over-plotting, almost inane dialogue at times and a sense too often that you've seen it all before.

The message is: Treasure isn't gold, but knowledge and truth and love are the only ways to find each other.

And clearly it may not be over yet: LaBeouf is being set up for Indy: the next generation.