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I'm not familiar enough with serials to know how over the top they go in the physics-defiance department .... but I'm willing to give the Indy series the benefit of some doubt because of my ignorance of the genre.
... and because I am tickled by other stuff that I assume and/or recognize from the B-movie / Serial genre, such as the Scientist Gone Native/Madman. For this film set in the 50's, I loved the incorporation of the Commie Red Menace, the Greaser/College Jock rivalry, the Atomic Bomb and, frankly, if Aliens and Flying Saucers had not been the paranormal element of this Indy romp, I would have been disappointed with the thematic exclusion. It may be Spielberg's over-used element, but if the shoe fits ...
Hey, I certainly don't mean to say we shouldn't nit-complain. It's perfectly valid. I just think there are bigger fish to fry in the problem department (though GD linked it nicely when he observed that if you're noticing lots of nits, you're likely not being sufficiently entertained).
And, I guess I'm repeating myself here, but the nits of implausible or impossible physicality are elements long established for this series decades ago ... when I complained about them mightily. I'm not here to deny anyone the same pleasure ... but it does seem a little hollow to be expecting gravity to pull downwards at this point.
Still ... if it pulls you out of the movie, it pulls you out.
Maybe I've complained so much about Indy's physics-bending tomfoolery that I'm over it. Certainly, in this last film, the higher over the top they went ... the less I minded it. I didn't blink an eye at the flying atomic refrigerator of womblike safety. Smaller touches like the Mutt's effortless monkey-vine swinging bothered me more.
(BTW ... did anyone think his name was "Mud?" I didn't notice it was Mutt till the end credits ... which is too bad, since that's a great joke.)
Anyway, though I found it hackneyed even as it happened ... I found myself crying at Indy and Marion's wedding! And I continued to cry through a bit of the credits when I realized I was entertained enormously and that the movie didn't completely suck .... which is all I ever hoped for.
I almost wished I'd left it after that first amazing screening. But it's good to come down to earth and recognize it as a seriously flawed film.
It's still my second favorite in a series of 3 very, very flawed films ... and one absolutely perfect movie.
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