National Treasure Review
by Karina Montgomery (karina AT cinerina DOT com)November 25th, 2004
National Treasure
Matinee Price
Picture yourself going into a Subway, or some other quickie place at which you may eat frequently. You have wanted, craved, this particular sandwich all week, and now you're finally gonna get it.
You know it's probably not 100% good for you (but better than the pseudo-beef burger down the street) and you know exactly how it will taste before you even see it. When you sit down with your chips and drink and taste that first bite, you think, "Mmm, yummy, just what I wanted." That is the exact experience of seeing National Treasure, in the best sense.
Jerry Bruckheimer-produced films (it often does not matter who directs them, they are their own genre) are always long on popcorn-film-level quality and short on thinking-man's entertainment.
But so what? Why should these only come out in the summer? The primary difference between a film like National Treasure and a "big summer movie" like Cat in the Hat is that as long as you don't ask any hard questions, National Treasure is a hoot and a holler. It's got a little intrigue, fun cat-burglar scenes, a little banter, a little tuxedo-hidden-under-the-uniform action, and even a little gosh darned patriotism thrown in. Some of the other big movies don't succeed in being just purely entertaining. Bruckheimer brought us Top Gun, The Rock, Pearl Harbor, and Armageddon, and Pirates of the Caribbean for pete's sake, and they were all enjoyable, disposable movies that you still enjoy watching over again a year later on tape just as much as the first time. Except for Pirates, which is brilliant.
I'm not saying that anyone with a high school education might not have some problems with a few plot points here or there. I could also note that Dan Brown covered a lot of this secret Masonic territory with his pre-DaVinci Code novel Angels and Demons. So what? Nicholas Cage is nothing if not fully committed to this rated PG jaunt through the hallowed halls of American History, and his cohorts (Diane Kruger and Justin Bartha) are just as committed. Jon Voight, now, I don't know. He brings an Anacondaesque slummy element to the movie, but fortunately, we don't see too much of him.
Sean Bean (you know, Ring-snatching Boromir) plays to type as a foil to Cage's Founding Father-philiac, and I'll be darned if he doesn't exhibit some super duper lucky coincidences of arcane knowledge and reasoning. In this movie, you don't care that everyone is arriving at the same time everywhere they go. That's not the point.
Bruckheimer doesn't insult your intelligence by trying to sell this silliness; he does a much better job selling the action-adventure of the whole thing, and the result is a delightful couple of hours eating the exact same sandwich you always order - your favorite.
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These reviews (c) 2004 Karina Montgomery. Please feel free to forward but credit the reviewer in the text. Thanks. You can check out previous reviews at:
http://www.cinerina.com and http://ofcs.rottentomatoes.com - the Online Film Critics Society http://www.hsbr.net/reviews/karina/listing.hsbr - Hollywood Stock Exchange Brokerage Resource
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