National Treasure Review
by Harvey S. Karten (harveycritic AT cs DOT com)November 22nd, 2004
NATIONAL TREASURE
Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Walt Disney Pictures
Grade: C
Directed by: Jon Turteltaub
Written by: Ted Elliott, E. Max Frye
Cast: Nicolas Cage, Harvey Keitel, Jon Voight, Diane Kruger, Sean Bean, Justin Bartha, David Dayan Fisher, Christopher Plummer, Oleg Taktarow, Stewart Finlay-McLennan, Mark Pellegrino, Annie Parisse, Armando Riesco, Tyler Marks Screened at: Loews 34th St. NYC, 11/20/04
As a high-school English and Social Studies teacher I've led a lot of field trips in my day to Broadway shows (where the highlight was the ride up the glass elevator at the Marriott Hotel), to "educational" movies (where we'd occasionally sneak into a screening of something more interesting like "Lethal Weapon"), even a couple of bus rides to Montreal. The dullest trip of all took me with a group of high schoolers chosen in Washington DC's "Close-up" program to view the Declaration of Independence at the National Archives. After all, how thrilling could it be to look at a faded document for which you could get a darn good replica for a few bucks at the souvenir store? But wait. Jon Turteltaub, in the Jerry Bruckheimer production of "National Treasure," passes on some information we just didn't have at the time.
It's not the front of the Declaration that matters, fifty-five flowery signatures notwithstanding: it's the reverse. On the back of the Declaration of Independence is an invisible map that can be brought to life with some lemon juice and a hair dryer. But it's not really a map, it's a list of numbers that the head triumvirate in "National Treasure" have to figure out, one quite as difficult to deconstruct as the Da Vinci code, though the prize to the code-breaker, no make that one-half of one percent of the proceeds of the treasure, can lead the finders to afford a huge house built on several acres in suburban Washington and a Porsche for a young man who settles for just that.
The story, written by Ted Elliott and E. Max Frye, opens on a kid named Benjamin Frankline Gates (Hunter Gomez) who is spellbound while listening to a true story told by his grandfather, John Adams Gates (Christopher Plummer) about a treasure that both he and the boy's father had sought, unsuccessfully, for twenty years. Try as they may, each time they discover the meaning of one code or other, they are led simply to yet another code, the idea being that those who buried the treasure wanted to keep it from the hands of the British in ye good olde colonie times.
Just to prove that stories handed down orally from grandfather to grandson can have more impact than watching TV, young Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage) gets on in years and continues to search for the treasure. But he is not the only one. A bad guy, Ian Howe (Sean Bean) is digging up clues in the same manner, realizing as well what must be done: first one to steal the Declaration of Independence and reveal the hidden numbers on the reverse side will wind up finding the stuff. With the help of Dr. Abigail Chase, a high-level exec at the National Archives, Gates and his Sancho-Panza follower Riley Poole (Justin Bartha) take on the adventure of their lives.
The film is not without interest and could even stimulate the young ones in the audience to want to go to Washington and do the dull field trip schtick. (This is a PG Walt Disney film thereby encouraging eight-year-olds to absorb some American History without having to study for a test.) Nicolas Cage goes through the motions, but there is little originality and less tension and suspense. Dr. Chase is annoying as a motormouth, but then the plot calls for that. Riley Poole, by contrast, has the most banal things to say, things that pass as wisecracks, but the plot does not call for that. Nic Cage never cracks a smile, going through the motions with his usual hangdog expression, but he may never recover his mojo from the days that he played in truly imaginative dramas like "Birdy" and "Red Rock West."
Rated PG. 125 minutes. 2004 by Harvey Karten
@harveycritic.com
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