National Treasure

Synopsis: Ben Gates (Nicholas Cage) and whiz-kid, Riley Poole (Justin Bartha), are convinced that the Declaration of Independence has an invisible treasure map on the back of it. To protect it from bad guys, they pre-emptively steal it from the National Archives, along with its beautiful archivist (Diane Kruger), and search for the treasure.

Many readers will remember that in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Earth was given a one-word review - 'harmless'. This was later updated in the new edition to 'mostly harmless.'

After the first half hour of this film, it too was heading for a one-word review - 'lame'. This had a lot to do with the adventurers looking for a 200-hundred year old ship lost in the arctic ice, and finding it just a few centimeters below the surface snow. This is not to mention the painful flashbacks that set-up the very silly plot.

Surprisingly however, the film shrugs off some of its worst excesses in the middle to end. The Bruckheimer juggernaut is quite experienced at battering you into the required credulity, yet the film doesn't have all the charm of more successful efforts like Pirates of the Caribbean. The sound-track, however, sounds the same as just about every other blockbuster in the cinemas, so you're on familiar ground there.

I haven't read The Da Vinci Code, the book that everyone's got on the tram these days, but I suspect this film shamelessly rips some ideas from it, adds a sprinkling of national pride, and an improbable relationship between the aging Cage and Kruger (formerly Helen of Troy). This kinda stuff will no doubt be lapped up by Americans interested in the Declaration, the Founding Fathers, the Knights Templar, and the Masons. For our local audience, the reverence for the aging bit of paper and other historical landmarks seems less accessible.

Yet with flashes of the excitement that we all remember from better examples of the genre (like Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark), it's hard not to like it for its mix of some good one-liners, puzzles to solve and treasure to hunt. 'Mostly harmless' would just about sum it up.

 

 

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