One of my workmates was browsing the net for current movies on locally.
In N.Z., "The Incredibles" is not screening until Dec. 26th!!
Outrage!!
Horreur!!
Three Exclamation Marks!!!

Ah well.
Whilst looking over his shoulder, I misread one of the titles at the distance I was standing - I subliminally thought:
"Indiana Jones and the Edge of Reason!"
Wow! How did they sneak that one to completion without me knowing?
Uh. No.
"Bridget Jones" it turned out to be. However, I think "Indiana Jones and the Edge of Reason" would have been the better choice!

(Make way! Make way for the SYNOPSIS!)

INDIANA JONES and the EDGE of REASON

At the start, (in the university) Indiana Jones has to placate two women. One is good-looking and a compulsive liar, the other is good-looking in a grumpy way and is a professor of Ancient Histories at Oxford University.
At the same time, another (male) Archaeologist is trying to muscle in on his territory with a lot of blustering. (Why does David Duchovny spring to mind?)

They all seek the Sword of Damocles (The aforementioned "Edge of Reason", geddit? Snarf!), which a mysterious man from the desert (Viggo Mortensen or Antonio Banderas - trés sexy and mysterious! - masked in a black sheikish outfit), appears to know more about than meets the eye. If only they could find his tent. And horse.
We return to Petra (only because it is cool!), whereupon a ludicrously valuable item (e.g. emerald encrusted gold scarab) is uncovered, mere inches below the surface of the front steps. It points the way toward a little uninhabited island in Greece. We will know it is Greece, because of the ludicrous number of suspiciously realistic Grecian marble statues found in a small cave.
There must be a scene involving whips and snakes (both together preferably.)

The sword is guarded by the secret "Cult of Medusa" - headed by none other than Sallah (John Rhys Davis, resurrected from the first movie.)

All this time, he'd been sending Indy after other artefacts in the hope that Indy would be foolishly killed, to no avail. So with the rivalrous prompting of the evil archaeologist in Sallah's hire (David), and unwillingly abetted by "good girl at heart", who is also coincidentally excellent with a rapier, Zeta-Jones ("They have my entire family hostage!"), and some crack detective work by "Scully", they find the sword.
Due to all the handling over the ages, and the lack of decent oiling, it is completely a mass of rust.

BUT WAIT!

The real one is hidden behind a plastered recess in the wall. Discovered by Zeta Jones, she "fences her way "nearly" to freedom, but gets tragically killed.
Blood of good intentions on the sword causes all evil-doers in the room to die horribly!
Heck. Let's say that the Oxford Ancient Histories girly turned out to be bad as well - she drops dead mysteriously at the same time..!
As for those suspiciously lifelike Grecian Statues in the cave? Innocent victims (recent among their number, the Mysterious Man of the Desert), of the evil bad Cult of the Medusa, are released from their stone-like curse! Mysterious Man also turns out to have been the good ("I renounced the evil ways of my father, long ago!") son of Sallah!

The sword crumbles into dust, and Indy has nothing - no girl, no sword... but he still gets the golden Scarab - which later we will see him stash in a little velvet box and return to the mysterious desert man (with appropriate regret).
He rides off into the desert sunset (cue triumphant music), and the camera fades to good ol' black!

(damn I'm good!)

Cast:

Indiana - Harrison Ford.
Compulsive "very beautiful" liar - Catherine Zeta Jones
Ancient Histories - Gillian Anderson
Bad Naughty Archaeologist - David Duchovny.
Viggo Mortensen or Antonio Banderas as "Mystery Desert Man" (the outcast son of Sallah??)
and John Rhys-Davis as "Sallah" himself!



Damn, I love a good stereotypical epic... ;)

***

If you pay in peanuts, you get monkeys.
Imagine instead, what you could get for "free"!
(... Probably more monkeys... )