Look!!! It's Nic Cage doing his best Lara Croft impression as he watches his action hero status fall into the abyss that is National Treasure.
Supposedly in development for awhile this under-cooked, over-budgeted action adventure is MORE boring than history class. How could Harvey Keitel, Christopher Plummer, Jon Voigt and Nic Cage be so wrong? Read on to find out.
Never have I been so tempted to do an early review. Why? Because National Treasure is so bad I felt a virtually moral obligation to warn you about it. As a critic my job isn't so much to find fault as to provide a balanced view. But complicating that are the things I know about marketing
Like this year's Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow which had the temerity to use the phrase “Come see the next revolution in film making” in its TV ads National Treasure promises much that it doesn't deliver. Only here we get references not to the future but to the past and, to this critic's mind, the cinematically sacred past.
Upon release Raiders of the Lost Ark took the world by storm with its beautifully told story, great performances and, most importantly, its channeling of the cliff hanger serials. One breathtaking action sequence after another was linked together by, and sometimes even included, ancient artifacts which were showcased in all their mystery. We understood without having to be told why the Ark of the Covenant was worthy of such fuss but Spielberg, Lucas and Ford underlined and highlighted it in ways that were so cinematically pure that they embodied our sense of mystery and awe. When you watched Indiana Jones dig holes in the ground you wanted to go off and devote your life to the same thing.
I seriously doubt anybody encountering Nicholas Cage's character, Benjamin Franklin Gates, will feel that way about American History after seeing this film yet early versions of the poster and trailer used unmistakably Jonesian imagery and intimations of a Davinci Code-like intrigue. The Jones reference alone prompts me to raise charges of cinematic blasphemy but fraud would be more apt. Using all these cobbled elements National Treasure emerges as a picture of all that is wrong with mainstream American action/adventure cinema. It begs us to love it even as it borrows and steals from so many much better sources and it has the nerve to wrap itself in the Declaration of Independence while it does so.
Benjamin Franklin Gates is one of a line of treasure hunter/protectors. Long ago his family was charged by the founding fathers with protecting a huge treasure from falling into disreputable hands. The exact location has been lost and the treasure itself become the stuff of myth. The Gates' are the laughing stock of the academic /historical community because of their belief.
In the beginning of the film Gates has joined forces with a wealthy man named Ian Howe (played by Sean Bean) and together they discover that various American historical artifacts, most notably the Declaration of Independence, contain hidden clues which will lead to the treasure.
At this point the film lurches into one predictable moment after another presenting the requisite number of car crashes, gun fights and finally a few by the numbers plot twists. And here is where the movie commits its other grievous sin - it bores. There isn't a single moment where we feel awe or suspense or surprise. Every stunt has been done a hundred times before, and the clues are deciphered in Holmesian fashion applied without any of the wit or style that made them it believable when it was done by Holmes ...
Cage seems to have no real idea how to approach the role of Gates. He throws in his signature quirks but they can't save the character from being too stupid to care about or believe in. For a historian who's supposed to have a religious fervor for historical artifacts he sure treats the 200 + year old Declaration with rough hands. The thing is smeared with lemon juice, shot at, and rolled and unrolled like a cheap window blind so many times it's a wonder there's anything left of it by the end of the movie. Did Gates ever really believe Howe was in it for anything but the money? And do we really believe that Gates has the skills necessary to steal the Declaration of Independence? These people should have watched Mission Impossible a few more times, or Ocean's 11 or any one of a dozen better movies that feature less than believable heists to learn how to present one entertainingly.
I understand this film was in considerable development. Given the end product I can only think that they should have looked into making it an after school special, or perhaps they could have done it all with puppets! But an action movie full of tired action, lackluster plotting and no sense of film history is bound to repeat itself, making all the mistakes we pray we won't see onscreen when we go to the movies.
ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON IMAGINE 'DAT!
Dave Canfield