They say that sometimes the past is better left in the past. And after sitting through this summer's nostalgia-palooza “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull,” I couldn’t agree more.

It’s been a couple of decades since Harrison Ford rode off into the sunset in “The Last Crusade,” and the generations of summer action adventures that have come in his wake have only made Indy seem better and better in hindsight… which is where they should have left him.

The brainchild of producer George Lucas and director Steven Spielberg, the Indiana Jones movies were pure popcorn escapism. They were smart, rollicking, giddy movies with action set pieces that were as complex as any Rube Goldberg contraption. Ford, the smirking bullwhip-cracking hero played the role as if Han Solo had dumped Chewbacca and gone off for a Ph.D in Egyptology. Cool was his middle name.

But in the latest Indiana Jones installment, there’s not much that’s cool or even that fun. It’s just a few zillionaires going back to the well one too many times.

Like the Ark of the Covenant in the first film, the MacGuffin this time around is a crystal skull that may or may not be the artifact of aliens. And as soon as this comes out of Ford’s mouth, you know you’re in for a slog. Really? Aliens? That’s the best you could come up with?

Because it’s set in the Cold War, hot on Indy’s trail for the relic are the evil Russians, led by a very Boris and Natasha-like Cate Blanchett. On Dr. Jones’s side this time around are Karen Allen’s pleasant return as Marion Ravenswood and Shia LaBoeuf’s Mutt, a rebel without a cause. The less said about LaBoeuf’s greaser character, the better.

There are a couple of fun action pieces, but mostly the thrill is gone. “Crystal Skull” ends up feeling like an aging rock band wheezing through their old hits onstage when everyone in the crowd knows they should have hung it up already.

Now for a look at what else is new on DVD: a slew of James Bond movies get trotted out to coincide with the latest big-screen installment; in “The Killing of a Chinese Bookie,” a John Cassavetes crime classic gets reissued; and in “Anaconda 3: Offspring,” more killer snakes keep on coming.