This film's a bit of a hard sell to general audiences. There have been more than a few knowing homages to serials (the Indiana Jones series being the most obvious), but this isn't really one of those. Rather than making a modern film that references old films, this is pretty much a serial with a $40 million budget and (at the time) modern effects. It's deliberately old fashioned and will work for you to the extent that you enjoy action stuff from simpler times. I do ... so I enjoy this.