Dir.
Jon Turteltaub, 2004, USA, 130 mins
Cast:
Nicolas Cage, Sean Bean, Jon Voight, Harvey Kietel, Christopher Plummer
It's not difficult to guess what to expect from a film that opens with Jerry Bruckheimer's lightning bolt logo. Whether an action thriller or a comedy, it will undoubtedly be photographed with a high-quality commercial sheen, edited with whiplash speed, have a fair dose of explosions, car chases, and incidental violence, and populated with patriotic wisecracking heroes who will at some point in the film walk (or run) towards the camera in slow motion accompanied by an ear-popping soundtrack. With blockbusting films including Beverly Hills Cop, Top Gun, Bad Boys, and Armageddon to his name, whatever it is, audiences are more than willing to lap it up.
With National Treasure (co-produced with Disney studios) Bruckheimer seems to be toning the high octane down a notch. The explosions, car chases, and wise-cracking patriotism are still on show, but, like last year's Pirates of the Caribbean (another Bruckheimer/Disney co-production), rather than going all out mindless action and thrills, this is more along the lines of a gentle comedy-adventure. Director Jon Turtletaub (While You Were Sleeping, Instinct, The Kid) manages to let the film simmer along, which provides the film with an almost one-note sense of excitement, and the scenes that should have the viewer on the edge of their seat never quite come to the boil.
Handed down through the generations, the Gates family name has become a laughing stock due to their legendary obsession for hunting the mythical treasure of the Knights Templar. Let in on the family secret by his grandfather (Plummer), and dissuaded by his father (Voight) from wasting his life as the rest of the family have done, Benjamin Franklin Gates (Cage) has finally figured out where the true map to the treasure is hidden - printed in invisible ink on the back of the Declaration of Independence. When his treasure-hunting partner (Bean) plans to steal it from the National Archives, Gates decides he has to stop him. With the help of computer whiz kid Riley (Justin Bartha), Gates realises that the only way to protect the Declaration is by stealing it first.
Some viewers won't fail to notice the apparently coincidental connections between National Treasure and the best selling novels of Dan Brown, Angels & Demons and The Da Vinci Code. Although Bruckheimer claims that the preparation of the screenplay started as far back as 1998, the similarities are unmistakeable. An historian in search of some ancient treasure buried, hidden, and protected by powerful secret organisations (The Knights Templar, The Freemasons) for centuries, has to break a number of codes, clues and riddles which will lead him to his ultimate goal. Cue some spooky theories on the markings on a simple dollar bill, symbolic details on famous landmarks and works of art, and lightening speed deductions and code breaking at judicial plot points. However, whereas the discoveries in the Brown novels hold some fundamentally life-changing and astronomical implications (the true nature of the Holy Grail, for example), the discovery in National Treasure is, well ... perhaps, nothing more than riches.
What holds the film together are the appealing performances from all involved, especially the pairing of Cage and Bartha as the continually bickering friends. Their routines provide the film with a fresh and amusing vitality, and they both seem to enjoy bringing a nerdy enthusiasm into the dangerous situations they find themselves. What finally lets the film down, however, is the feeling that it wears its aspirations far more intelligently than it ultimately is on its sleeve. What could have been a modern-day Raiders of the Lost Ark, filled with an exciting concoction of historical mysteries and thought provoking conspiracies, turns into a rather average, if engaging and charming, adventure romp.
Angus Macdonald
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