MANILA, Philippines?The show biz world is all about youth worship?the younger, the better! But, every once in a while, a senior star racks up a great revival production that turns out to be an outstanding success, leaving much younger stars green with envy.

Yes, youth is enormously appealing and even intoxicating, but there?s ?something? about age and experience that is also uniquely seductive and reassuring.

Of late, veteran stars have been chalking up more than their share of hits, prompting show biz observers to realize that they can?t say that an ?old? talent is down and out?until he?s permanently retired.

Success story

The latest success story has been told by Harrison Ford and his current revival sequel, ?Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.? Ford, who?s already in his late 60s, may be slower in ?Crystal Skull,? but not exceedingly so?and, in any case, current fave, Shia LaBeouf, is on hand to pick up whatever slack there is.

This time around, the action is set in the ?50s, and Indiana and company race against some Russian agents to solve the mystery surrounding some otherworldly skulls that possess great, unnatural power. The villains believe that this power can generate global control and riches beyond imagination, but it turns out that its secret is less materialistic?and that?s what makes it so scary!

To director Steven Spielberg, this thin slip of a plot is all the excuse he needs to go gleefully overboard with ?crazy? action scenes, cliffhanger chases, and intimations of a more personal relationship between Ford and LaBeouf?s characters?particularly after LaBeouf?s mother turns out to be one of Ford?s ?old friends.?

Frankly, Spielberg?s visual inventiveness sometimes takes up too much screen time, leaving us to occasionally tweedle our thumbs as we wait for a hectic suite of action scenes to end.

But, we continually remind ourselves that Spielberg?s ?fun? outlook is the operative norm in this production, so viewers should leave thoughts of logic and structure at the takilya, and simply surrender themselves to the cheeky action.

?Crystal Skull? is full of awesome visual moments, not the least flamboyant of which is the awesome sequence in which the good guys? vehicle sequentially plummets down three waterfalls.

Quicksand

But, our personal favorite is the much smaller scene in which Shia saves Indiana from death by quicksand by throwing him a length of ?rope? that turns out to be?a humungous snake!

Other veteran stars who have starred in showy revivals include John Travolta in ?Hairspray,? Sylvester Stallone in ?Rocky Balboa??and the prodigiously productive and versatile Meryl Streep, who keeps starring in one film after another, from ?The Devil Wears Prada? to ?Lions for Lambs? to ?Mamma Mia!?