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| National Treasure |
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  (7/10)
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Runtime: 100 |
| Public Rating: 8.70 (322 votes) |
Director: Jon Turtletaub |
MPAA Rating:  |
| Genre: Action/Adventure |
Year: 2004 |
| Writer(s): Jim Kouf, Cormac Wibberly and Marianne Wibberly |
| Distributor: Walt Disney Pictures |
| Reviewed by: Mel Valentin |
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National Treasure, the latest big-budget action/adventure fest from uber-producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Bad Boys I and II, Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, Pearl Harbor, Armageddon, Con Air, The Rock), is about as blandly mediocre as we’ve come to expect from risk-averse Hollywood studios. National Treasure plays like a dumbed-down version of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code. The Da Vinci Code’s commercial success and easily adaptable formula likely provided the “inspiration” for the by-the-numbers screenplay by Jim Kouf, Cormac Wibberly, and Marianne Wibberly. The characters are one-dimensional, the performances wooden and uninspired, the dialogue lackluster, on the nose, or funny-because-it’s-so-horribly written, the plot complications predictable, and the set pieces unimaginatively directed.
1974. A young boy searches for something inside a dusty attic. His grandfather, John Adams Gates (Christopher Plummer), shows up and spins a yarn bound to fascinate the pre-teen. According to the elder Gates, the Founding Fathers, led by Benjamin Franklin, were part of a secret society, the Freemasons. The Freemasons were entrusted with a glittering, fantastical treasure by the Knights Templar, who themselves relieved the centuries- and ancient cultures-spanning treasure from Arab Muslims during the First Crusade in the eleventh century. The Freemasons shipped the treasure to the New World for safekeeping during the eighteenth century and hid it somewhere in the original thirteen colonies.
The present. Benjamin Gates (Nicholas Cage, sporting a helmet-like toupee), his computer whiz assistant, Riley Poole (Justin Bartha), and his rival, treasure hunter/millionaire Ian Howe (Sean Bean) have tracked down a key clue to the treasure near the Arctic Circle inside a Revolutionary War-era sailing ship. Clue found, Howe double-crosses Gates and Poole, and leaves them behind. This clue is the first of several pointing to a map hidden in the Declaration of Independence. Howe has few qualms about stealing the Declaration of Independence from the National Archives in Washington, D.C. Gates, decides to steal the document first.
Washington, D.C. Gates and Poole contacts an archivist, Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger), to warn her about Howe’s plans. National Treasure then switches into heist prep and execution mode, with Gates and Howe simultaneously racing to locate and steal the Declaration of Independence from a high-security area. Gates conveniently locates building and security plans for the National Archives. Gates realizes that Howe will try to steal the document on the night of a gala event held inside the building. With the now clichéd standbys of the heist film (i.e., switching video tape, lifting and using fingerprints to bypass easily fooled security systems), Gage steals the Declaration of Independence. The only real suspense here comes from Howe’s simultaneous arrival with his team of thugs and high-tech equipment.
Abigail becomes ensnared in the plot to find the hidden treasure. With the FBI on his trail, led by Lt. Sadusky (Harvey Keitel). Our heroes’ escape leads them to Gates’ father, Patrick (Jon Voight). Patrick, true to form, is gruff and uncommunicative. Patrick is there to serve as foil to Benjamin’s fanciful obsessions. Adding Benjamin’s father to the plot raises another reference point Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, with its dueling father/son archeologists searching for the Holy Grail. Together, Gage, his father, Riley and Abigail continue their search for clues ending in New York City with a stop in Philadelphia. The discovery of each new clue leads the characters closer to the treasure. The new locations do allow Turtletaub to string out a foot chase in Philadelphia and the climactic scene inside a vast underground chamber, complete with rotting stairs.
Chances are, moviegoers won’t be familiar with Turtletaub’s previous directorial efforts (e.g., Disney’s The Kid, Instinct, Phenomenon, Cool Runnings, and 3 Ninjas). To Turtletaub’s minimal credit, he films and edits the action set pieces cleanly (if unimaginatively), allowing audiences to follow the action with the minimum of distraction. Turtletaub’s uninspired direction, however, is the least of National Treasure’s deficiencies. National Treasure's premise, the search for a massive fortune hidden by the seemingly omnipotent Founding Fathers that can be only discovered through a series of clues, stretches, and then breaks, the suspension of (normal) disbelief necessary to keep us engaged more than superficially.
Ultimately, National Treasure is nothing more than what it seems at first glance: light, uninvolving entertainment. There’s much here to strain credibility too little here to engage audiences on an intellectual, puzzle-solving level, let alone on the level of empathy and sympathy for the central characters. Still, there are far worst ways to spend a Sunday afternoon than a bargain matinee screening National Treasure. National Treasure, however, is likely to be relegated to late-night cable fodder, especially as The Da Vinci Code goes into production soon with Ron Howard at the helm and Tom Hanks in the lead role.
© Mel Valentin, 28th November, 2004
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