He proved them wrong,
Boy, did he ever.
Those who said Harrison Ford couldn't play Indiana Jones again – that at age 65, he was too old to play an action hero – were dreadfully mistaken, as judged by tickets sold.
The long-awaited fourth installment of the Indiana Jones series did not disappoint the majority. This "old man" and his performance helped ensure that Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was ranked number one in the box office on its opening weekend, with huge, huge numbers.
The film grossed an estimated $311-million worldwide in the first long weekend of its release and in the United States, it had the second-largest Memorial Day weekend opening ever behind Pirates of the Caribbean 3.
When we last left our hero, in 1989’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, it was the late 1930s and the Nazis were on the rise. Now, in his newest adventure, it’s 1957 and the Cold War is raging. With his new sidekick Mutt (Shia LeBrouf), Harrison as Indy fights communists in Peru while in pursuit of an ancient crystal skull said to hold great alien power. The whole journey is filled with action, adventure and, of course, more whip-cracking excitement. There's even an atomic blast – they certainly didn't have those in the 1930s.
Web users have generally, but not uniformly, given thumbs up to the idea of Ford as Indy so many years after the last installment. Preemptively, back in 2002, the actor had attempted to derail future arguments in a quote now carried on theraider.net:
 "What astonishes me is that people can't imagine Indiana Jones aging at all. Why expect any character to be frozen in time? The appeal of Indiana Jones isn't his youth but his imagination, his resourcefulness ... His physicality is a big part of it, especially in the way he gets out of tight situations. But it's not all hitting people and falling from high places.
"My ambition in action is to have the audience look straight in the face of a character and not at the back of a capable stuntman's head. I hope to continue to do that, no matter how old I get."
Physically, Ford made sure he could look the part of a man of action, hitting the gym three hours a day. His face appears youthful on the big screen, his form lithe and trim. Director Stephen Spielberg said he couldn’t tell the difference between shots for the third and fourth films, while screenwriter George Lucas commented that the fourth film looked like it had been shot not long after number three.
Ford indeed performed his own stunts. Comparing the latest Indy movie to the previous ones, he said in a Vanity Fair interview, "In the first one, I tore the ACL in my left leg, and then in the second one, I ended up with a bad back injury and had to have surgery in the middle of filming. But in this one, I was pretty much uninjured."
Reviews for the film were mixed, with some criticizing it for relying too much on special effects and a lack of realism. But most felt Ford has done well in his reprisal of the Indy role. "He deserves a hug and a high five," said one moviegoer commenting online.
Wrote Bob Grim of Tucson Weekly, "The best thing about the movie is seeing Ford having fun again. He hasn't looked this excited since the last Indiana Jones film 19 years ago."
Looks like Indy hasn't yet lost his touch.