The morning after........
++Spoilers++ i
Does revisiting the character 20 years on work? It does...and doesn't. The problem is not whether a fedora wearing, whip cracking tomb raider is dated in 2008, more whether he's dated in 1957. It was a case of suspending disbelief somewhat in the world of jets and nuclear testing and it's not a very happy marriage.
I didn't think the Russians worked. I think it might have been better to have a rogue government department.

Bit beyond belief (silliness is what it's all about but it must be believable) that they could get into the US/Area 51 at all at the start, especially at that time.
Counting up the film references, and there's a lot, leaves you with the bad impression of not a lot of originality. I muttered along with Ford 'same old, same old.' Ten Commandments, The Mummy, Quatermass and The Pit, (1967 film) Independence Day, Close Encounters and Citizen Kane.
That is the problem. We've had a lot of this stuff in The Mummy which though for a simple plot line can't be beaten in the worRAB of Brendan Fraser, 'rescue the damsel in distress, kill the bad guy, save the world.' I'm still woozy on a lot of the plot. Not that there was too little, rather that there's too much. There's a skull. It keeps getting repeated it must be returned. But it's not stopping the Russkies getting hold of it. As for the ending...great ending cinematically but there's no message, no moral, no lesson, no resolution. So you feel cheated.
Funnily enough what seems to be the main critique...the bit in the middle with the Mayan explanations and the Nazca Lines...I LOVE that stuff. I get as thrilled by that as by river chases.

But I agree some explanations are missing...and there was no need to have tribes there at all. (King Kong.)

Harrison is still Harrison and he holRAB it together...sometimes literally with bare hanRAB. Karen Allen is terribly directed. Marion is not a hysterical fishwife.
The great bits...the action sequences as has been said are worth the whole shebang, the waterfalls are terrific and I was excited before that anyway seeing Indy finally go to a spot on the map where I've actually been...Peru so I was happy.
Revisiting the trilogy recently, Temple of Doom was just as bad as I remembered it, Raiders the same as before and Last Crusade even better than I remembered. I'd always rated Last Crusade best. Still two sticking points in Raiders on logic for me, the switching baskets and Indy-getting-on-board-and-into-sub-without-being-noticed that stops it being first with me. I put Kingdom well ahead of Temple. That's a plus point.
It's enjoyable. But as the saying goes, you can't go home again.