National Treasure - A Thoroughly Average Experience

I could go with the obvious observation and make some joke about how this movie was no real "treasure", though in fairness it did seem "national" in scope. Enough cities are mentioned or shown or talked about to give one the feeling that the location manager was the hardest working member of this crew. In actuality, National Treasure, about the hunt for constitutional booty long since hid by Benjamin Franklin and cohorts, is an adequate movie. That's it, it falls somewhere between good or bad, instead languishing in average territory. All-in-all, an average movie is deserving of an average review. So here goes...

National Treasure wants to be Raiders of the Lost Ark but instead delivers The Mummy. That isn't a slight at The Mummy, which I quite enjoyed, but National Treasure delivers the same tepid pacing: passable action scenes intermixed with unnecessarily necessary exposition. In fact, the action scenes were what took away from the momentum of National Treasure. Just when we start to get some juicy Free-Mason/Knights Templar dirt on the founding fathers we suddenly cut away to some increasingly mundane action set-up.

There is little sense of jeopardy as Sean Bean, the bad guy because he's named Ian (how come bad guys always have uptight and British monikers), makes with the chasing. He's motivated by greed, apparently the most corruptible of sins in a treasure hunter and so he and Cage as Benjamin Franklin Gates, who's more altruistic, part ways. But not for long.

Their of course after the same thing: Steal the Declaration of Independence and splash lemon juice on its back side to reveal something so secret that it took all the original declaration signers and the original Ben Franklin several decades and a preternatural anticipation of urban development that borders on the psychic, to create a treasure hunt that nobody in their right mind would have the energy or the obsessive compulsiveness to solve.

Nicolas Cage, reigned and playing it straight, which is kinda like asking Picasso to forgo the use of cubes. I missed the tic-riddled, borderline Tourette's that Cage brings to most roles. Sure, it can be ingratiating but it's hardly ever boring and sometimes it's brilliant (Leaving Las Vegas, Adaptation). I still don't know what motivates his character. Was it the three-minute scene with his grandfather (Christopher Plummer) telling tales out of school about free-masonry. We know that it's important with Plummer playing a thankless role. If it's good enough for the guy from the Sound of Music, we'd better pay attention.

Diane Kruger, beautiful beyond words. Acting ability, terrible beyond words. I've been to graduate school, Ph.D.'s have never looked like this. If they did, I'd still be there.

I did appreciate a movie with this level of gunplay in which only one person dies, but no one is shot. Gunplay without consequence is almost refreshing.

So, if you're looking to kill two hours of your life, and feel that quality should be somewhere in the middle of excellent and unpleasant, check out National Treasure. If you're looking for a more challenging movie-going experience go rent Open Water.
Jess Nakaska is an aspiring screenwriter always on the lookout for the next great script idea. He'll let you know if he finds it. Feel free to contact him at jessnakaska@hotmail.com.