Return of the Lost Adventurer

By BECCA OWSLEY bowsley@thenewsenterprise.com The man in the hat is back and not a minute to soon.

Harrison Ford returns in his brown fedora, leather jacket and familiar whip to play Indiana Jones once again. Jones has been absent from the big screen since 1989 but returns today for another adventure in “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.”

I, for one, am very excited.

Someone asked me recently if I was going to see the flick and if I was an Indiana Jones fan. Am I an Indiana Jones fan? The movies are only a close second to the “Star Wars” films in my all-time favorites.

There may be a common denominator in the films and Ford may be it. Ever since I was a little girl I had a crush on the adventurous archeologist.

I can just hear the John Williams score and know adventure is soon to follow.

The films may be part of the reason to this day I would love to be an archeologist. Granted, rarely are real archeologists chased by giant boulders, cast into a pit of snakes or able to survive an ending in which everyone else had their faces melted off … but still, there is a mystery to it that is intriguing.

My favorite scene in all the films has always been one from “Raiders of the Lost Ark.”  It is the scene where they are digging at the entrance of the Well of the Souls, where the Ark of the Covenant was hidden and Jones is shown putting on the classic fedora silhouetted in front of the sunset. Now that’s classic. Spielberg and Lucas really know their stuff.

I can remember standing in line to see “The Last Crusade” only to be disappointed because the film had sold out. I had to return again a few days later with my family to see it.

When I was a kid, my brother and I used to make snippets of films in our backyard. In one such short film, I made him dress in khaki, put on a leather jacket and wear my dad’s brown fedora as we created “Indiana Jones and the Search for the Golden Bowl.”

If only YouTube had been around when we were kids. We could be famous. We also did “Rocky” and a version of “Jaws” featuring our Golden Retriever, Chewbacca.

I have wondered if the film still will hold the same charm it did 27 years ago when “Raiders” first leapt on the screen. It has to be better than some of the mindless films in theaters today that have no creative power at all.

Ford, 65, has aged a bit, but after donning the hat and jacket the timeless adventurer is back again.

In Indy’s own words, “It’s not the years, it’s the mileage.”

And in reality, does it really matter how good it is? Indy is back and the adventure continues.   Becca Owsley can be reached at (270) 505-1741.