ok, the Boston Globe just said exactly the same thing as me, but much better. I should have just read their review first and quoted it:

"The emphasis in "Crystal Skull" is on old-fashioned stunt work rather than the shiny chimeras of modern digital effects. When Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) catapults from the back of a motorcycle through the window of a speeding car, out the opposite window and back onto the motorcycle - his feet nervously skitching along the roadbed - at least half the excitement is knowing that motorcycle, car, Ford, and road are real."