National Treasure Movie Review:


Meglo-producer Jerry Bruckheimer has taken us onto a screaming asteroid, broken into Alcatraz and given us adrenaline rush after adrenaline rush. One of Bruckheimer’s favorite leading men, Nicolas Cage takes another ride on the Bruckheimer popcorn express.

Cage first teamed with Bruckheimer on the action-thriller “The Rock” where Cage got his first taste of being a true action hero. He then returned as a “convict-with-a-heart-of-gold” in “Con-Air” and finally as a dashing car thief in “Gone in 60 Seconds”.

In Cage’s fourth collaboration with Bruckheimer we find him playing Benjamin Franklin Gates, a cursed treasure hunter who has watched generations of his family wither away as they seek out the ultimate prize. Through clues left by America’s founding fathers, the Gates legacy believed that some of America’s most prized artifacts would lead the legendary “Knight Templar’s Treasure”.

Teamed up with comic relief and techie Riley (Justin Bartha of “Gigli”) and National Archives conservator Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger of “Troy”), Gates must battle Ian Howe, a ruthless adversary (Sean Bean) and secure the key to the treasure, the American Declaration of Independence.

We all have yearned to be Indiana Jones and embark on one of his amazing adventures. With “National Treasure”, Bruckheimer and Cage try to embrace the thrills and treasure-seeking desires in their new hero, Ben Gates. The duo also connects their hero to symbols of American history as he embarks on his quest.

That was all fine until the quest becomes one that has drifted down through the ages and is now connected to the likes of the Egyptians and the Knight’s Templar. This leap is one I wasn’t about to take.

The underlying message presented in the film about American patriotism and that the world’s most capitalist state would be connected to the world’s largest treasure seems entirely goofy and almost egotistical. Given the state of the American union currently and the re-election of George W Bush, I am not sure this film’s message is appropriate. Maybe if it was released in the mid-1980s it would have rang more true.

The film itself is littered with oodles and oodles of clichés, bad dialogue and two-dimensional characters.

One perfect scene to help clarify this factor is the scene where Gates leads his crack team into the bowels of a frozen ship known as the Charlotte. Gates tips over barrels scattered about uncovering black powder. Then you have one guy say, “Gun powder”. Ok, first off we have a ship, there are cannons and the powder is black. What else could it be, coffee?

To top this all off, Gates finds the frozen dead captain of the ship holding a barrel to his chest. And Gates goes, “I wonder why the captain is holding this barrel so closely?” My quote isn’t perfect but it is just pure stupidity and blatantly obvious useless dialogue.

The film continues like this with Gates having these obvious and goofy revelations.

Cage is good as Gates but his dialogue really distracted me from his performance.

Kruger is once again another woman whose character loses her intelligence as soon as she is on the hunt. Why couldn’t she have been more like Rachel Weisz in the “Mummy” films?

There are some slight humorous moments and some of the heist sequences were entertaining but definitely not nail-biting. If in some magical way this film gets kids to study history great because maybe then they will look back and see just how corny this film actually is.

So Says the Soothsayer.



Dean Kish

As preposterous and silly a film as National Treasure is, it is still a fun popcorn movie that never asks its audience to take it very seriously. Typical for a Jerry Bruckheimer production, the film has numerous chase scenes and over the top explosions. However, it reference to Bruckheimer, National Treasure is tamer and more of history lesson adventure than typical action bonanza. The film is being referred to as a mix between The Da Vinci Code and Indiana Jones, which it comes nowhere close to being, but is a lot more entertaining than films like The Mummy, Tomb Raider and Van Helsing.

Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage) is a ninth generation historian adventurer searching for clues to a hidden treasure that dates back 400 years ago and has grown immensely in its duration. The film opens with a young Ben first learning of the secret treasure from his grandfather (Christopher Plummer), who gives him the history of its existence and how the Gates family became involved. Ben’s father, Patrick (Jon Voight), despises the legend of the treasure stating that it is all myths and a waste of time.

Flash forward thirty years to the Artic Circle, where now as a historian and official treasure hunter, Ben has found a critical clue to the treasure’s location by learning of an invisible map that was placed on the back of the Declaration of Independence by the Founding Fathers of America. Ben’s partner, Ian (Sean Bean), double crosses him and leaves he and his best friend, Riley (Justin Bartha), left for dead. By miraculously surviving the Artic, Ben and Riley return to America. Knowing that Ian has the power to steal the Declaration of Independence for the map, Ben attempts to warn the authorities as well as National Archives curator Dr. Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger). After practically being laughed at, Ben decides to steal the Declaration of Independence himself to protect it from falling into the wrong hands. Shortly after successfully stealing the Declaration of Independence, Ben along with Riley and of course Abigail Chase begin to put the clues together as to where the treasure is. Going from Washington, D.C to Philadelphia to New York, the trio are carefully piecing together clue by clue, which are all in someway connected to history and landmarks. All of this happening while Ian and the bad guys are one step behind them as well as the FBI, which is lead by an ethical investigator named Sadusky (Harvey Keitel).

Director Jon Turteltaub keeps this film on the edge, to where it moves so quick that it’s over two hour running time is not felt. The action is submissive and Turteltaub’s chase sequences are simple and not derivative. There are of course cheesy and dunce moments in the film that are a little too much even for a mindless popcorn movie. The atmosphere is certainly adventurous with the numerous historical U.S. landmarks and also old and decaying undergrounds that require torches to be lit. The director keeps this film very “PG,” even though all of the characters are adults. Only the bad guys have guns and shoot them, there is no cursing, and absolutely no blood. One could have easily blown this film into a typical “R” rated action blockbuster.

The script by Jim Kouf, Cormac Wibberley and Marianne Wibberley asks the audience to suspend disbelief and to take in a numerous off-wall ideas. However, not once does the script asks you to take it seriously; it is composed for just pure amusement. An example is the whole treasure concept and the weak and easy way that Ben and Riley steal the Declaration of Independence as well as other things. The characters also have no depth whatsoever. Abigail Chase merely joins the nerdish hero and his sidekick on their treasure hunt because the script needs her to be there to fall in love with Ben. The script tries to be more complicated than it really is and is not that contrite of a blueprint, but it really doesn’t need to be.

Nicolas Cage returns to his ordinary guy, turned action hero type roles as the adventurer Benjamin Franklin Gates. These are the types of roles that made the character actor an action hero in the late 1990’s, and perhaps he will rejuvenate his action career with his splendid performance as this treasure searching guru. A lot more likeable than her past performances this year in Troy and Wicker Park, Diane Kruger suits the role as Ben’s love interest Abigail. Last seen in the horrendous Gigli, Justin Bartha steals a lot of moments as the film’s funny sidekick who cannot stand that everyone always has a leg up on him. Sean Bean plays a bad guy once again as Ian and Harvey Keitel once again plays a pursing FBI agent as Sadusky. Jon Voight also has a supporting role as Ben’s unconvincing father.

National Treasure’s “PG” rating and genuine adventure feel could help it gain a chunk of the movie going demographic. This is producer Jerry Bruckheimer’s first PG movie since Remember the Titans, which was a solid hit. Though National Treasure feels like a big summer movie, it is quite toned down. Trevor Rabin contributes with a terrific musical score and Nicolas Cage returns to a type of role that brought him mainstream success. National Treasure is of course a really inept film that is just flat out dumb at moments, but it does what popcorn films are meant to do, entertain us.

Bailey Henderson

For generations the Gates family has been looking for a fabled treasure hidden by the Founding Fathers of the United States of America and now Benjamin Franklin Gates (Cage) thinks he might have cracked the only clue to its existence. The clue however leads him to the collusion that the map to the treasure is located on the back of the Declaration of Independence. This revelation means that to read the map he will have to steal one of the most closely guarded national exhibits before a rival team gets their hands on it or the FBI get wind of the planned heist.

When it comes to producing big budget popcorn movies, no one does it better than Jerry Bruckheimer but can National Treasure keep up his reputation?

As a big action spectacle that keeps you entertained for its slightly over long 131 minutes, the film definitely keeps Bruckheimer’s reputation intact. Combining action, a heist, a history lesson and archaeology, National Treasure tries to be the new Indiana Jones for the 21st century. While it might not have the magic of the adventures of the man with the hat and whip, it does succeed in creating a sense of adventure and intrigue that will keep you enthralled for the duration.

It is the story that draws you in. This is an intriguing and quite ingenious tale that successfully draws on America’s history by incorporating the Founding Fathers and many of the country’s national monuments and documents. The writers create a plausible premise by merging it with the elaborate, making the foundations of what America was built on, a scheme to hide a priceless treasure that has existed since the time of the Egyptian Pharaohs. With the answer to each clue giving you another part of the puzzle, the story is revealed to you at the same time as the characters, so you are putting the pieces together at the same time as they do. This makes the movie very watchable and entertaining.

Nicolas Cage steps into the role of treasure hunter Benjamin Franklin Gates with ease, rekindling his creative relationship with Bruckheimer that had served them so well in hits like Con Air and The Rock. This is a character that Cage can play in his sleep but he still manages to make Gates very watchable and charismatic. He makes the premise more believeable as he delivers his lines with his usual gusto, which adds to the films validity, even if the plot does feel a little far-fetched at times. Current flavour of the month Diane Kruger stars in her third mainstream Hollywood feature of 2004, after Troy and Wicker Park. The German actress has just the right look to get on in Tinseltown but she can also act as well, making Abigail Chase not just another damsel in distress. Justin Bartha gets his big break as techie Riley Poole. This is the character that provides most of the comedic lines of the piece and Bartha delivers them extremely well.

The three leads have some good support on their adventure. Sean Bean is again cast as the villain of the piece in a role that Hollywood just loves him playing. As this is a family movie, we don’t get to see the cruel and vicious Sean Bean that we usually get but a man driven by greed and glory, who will do almost anything to get it. Jon Voight is also good as Ben Gates’s father, Patrick, the only sceptic of the Gates clan who has seen generations of his family waste their lives looking for something he is sure that doesn’t exist. Harvey Keitel is slightly wasted as FBI agent Sadusky, as he seems like he is there just to pick up a paycheque and not much else. There is also a small put noticeable cameo by the great Christopher Plummer.

National Treasure is another fine popcorn movie from Jerry Bruckheimer. This might not be life changing stuff but it is very enjoyable with a good premise and some very likeable performances that make it very good throwaway entertainment.

Jamie Kelwick

 

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