National Treasure Review

My expectations going into this movie were not high. The trailers had looked good, but the rather low Rotten Tomatoes score was not a good sign. However, I have three reviewers I generally trust, and I had not heard from any of them yet, so I was willing to reserve judgement, especially since I was going to see it anyway. So I went with my friends Carl and Java on opening night. We got there about 20 minutes early and it was a damn good thing we did, because that theater was full. We actually arrived in time to score decent seats, but with about five minutes to go there were probably 10-15 people wandering around trying to find seats that weren't 7 feet from the screen, and the usher asked everyone to move in and fill in empty seats (which we had actually already done to accomodate someone). Obviosly the bad reviews weren't keeping people away.

I'll try to give a fairly spoiler-free review here. The movie, as you know if you've seen a trailer, is about Benjamin Gates (Nic Cage) and his quest for an ancient, massive treasure. It's consumed his family for generations, but, for some reason, Ben actaully makes some progress on it. In the course of searching, he is forced to steal the original Declaration of Independence, run around doing deeds of daring do, gets the girl (come on, it's a Disney movie. You knew he was gettin' the girl before you knew there was a girl) and that sort of thing. Working against him is Sean Bean, who plays Belloq to Cage's Indiana Jones, and Harvey Keitel, an FBI agent who wants to have a discussion about the Declaration. Working with him is his plucky, quippy sidekick (Justin Bartha) who happens to be a computer whiz, a scientist from the National Archives (Diane Kruger, who played Helen in Troy), and Gate's reluctant father, who gave up the search for the treasure years ago.

Most of my problems with this movie occurred in the area of believability, although they were never so dramatic as to bring me out of the movie. The presence of security forces was extremely low, especially to our post-9/11 mentalities. Both parties of treasure hunters seem to get to wherever they need to be rather easily and without having to knock out even so much as a tour guide. I understand why they did this, and it was just a running awareness in the back of my mind during the movie. Another issue was the Declaration itself. I don't know what the physical state of the Declaration is, but I'm willing to guess that it might not be up to the physical rigors this movie puts it through. Maybe it would, but I'm not so sure. I realise both these choices were made to make the movie possible, so it's really my argumentative side that's pointing them out. I pity the guards who will have to deal with the rash of kids trying to get into restricted areas of national monuments after seeing this movie.

I also had a slight problem with the treasure itself. Now, for most of the movie the treasure acts as a plot device rather than as an actual treasure, but I was left with lingering questions about how the treasure was assembled, moved, installed-that sort of thing. In the end, the treasure was just a lot of valuable stuff. Although there was nothing wrong with this, I felt the movie would have been better if the treasure had a little more personality. The classic example would be the Arc of the Covenant in Raiders, and even the gold coins in Pirates of the Caribbean were more intriguing.

Now, with all that said, I enjoyed this movie. It was fast paced, which helps to hide the problems previously discussed, at least while you're watching it. The action worked, the heist scenes worked (in the context of the lessened security), and I felt the characters, in particular the quippy sidekick, actually got better as the movie went on. The sets were excellent, and I felt the script integrated the history aspect of things very well (I say this without being an American Historian, who for all I know are having fits about this movie). It also succeeded in building a fair aura of mystery and intrigue, which I initially felt was lacking. In fact, I generally felt that the entire movie got better as it went on, which was a pleasant surpise.

Is it formulaic and predictable? Of course. Is it a fun way to spend 100 minutes? As long as you let yourself get into the movie and don't think about it too much, yes. See it once, for cheap if you can, then go see The Incredibles again for a really great film.