Techtite DVD Reviews

The Film: If there was ever a movie that required the words "suspend disbelief" in its review, it's National Treasure. However, if you can succeed in doing so, you may very well wind up having an entertaining matinee-movie type of experience, which to this critic was even better than what most of the past summer's intended "blockbusters" offered. It doesn't make much sense, but what does? It's still imaginative, and quite fun.

It's the premise that sells the concept; a premise so simple you'd wonder if the only reason it was never considered before, is because nobody had the guts to do it. Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage) is a man who is obsessed to prove that his grandfather's old treasure story is real; a story passed from grandfather to grandson in his family, for many generations. As the story goes, a treasure trove beyond imagination has been hidden for centuries, whose location is hidden in secret clues placed in everyday American icons; the back of a dollar bill, the liberty bell, or even the Declaration of Independence itself. The only way to unlock these clues is from this one line muttered to a patriarch of the Gates family, back in the days of colonial America. Nobody has ever tried to discern what that clue means. Benjamin, with the help of modern satellite locators and the internet, thinks he's found that first clue item; an old ship frozen in the Antarctic. The adventure begins from there.

The bad news for Gates is: the only people who believed in him to go on this journey would be people desperate for a buck. Ian Howe (Sean Bean) promptly discovers the first piece of the puzzle is real, and that's all he needs to know to try and kill Benjamin at the deserted ship wreckage, and set off to get the treasure himself. This was never Gates' plan; all he wanted was to find the treasure, and regain his family's respect in the community. See; after several old man tales about this treasure, everyone thinks of the Gates family as a bunch of crackpots. Gates must now try and find the treasure not just to bring honor and prestige to his name, but also to keep the treasure from getting into the wrong hands. His only aids are two newfound friends; a partner in his journey named Riley (Justin Bartha), and an artifacts curator named Abigail (Diane Kruger, in a vastly different role for her than Helen of Troy, I must say!).

Of course, this film is a total fantasy, requiring you to believe in the unlikely. However; it's not that big of a leap of faith. At no point do skeletons come to life, nor does the curse of the tomb turn into evil ghosts and goblins that try to thwart the heroes. No, instead, this is a far more simple leap of faith, where the pyramid with the eye on a standard dollar bill is...a clue! The liberty bell's original location, at a particular time of day, pointed to...another clue! This isn't getting to the biggest leap of faith of all, that the back of the Declaration of Independence itself had invisible ink markings on it, giving the biggest clue of all. This is perhaps the catch-22 of the film's premise, compared to its execution; if you're going to be this fanciful, one may wonder why they didn't go all out, and give people the typical ghost story of haunted treasure that makes any hidden treasure story all the more fun (Pirates of the Caribbean, anyone?). That is both at once the film's strength and weakness; its insistence to be firmly rooted in "reality."

Some critics have compared the resulting movie to Raiders of the Lost Ark. Is this a fair comparison, for any treasure hunting story? The thought is as unfair as comparing a modern romance drama to Gone With the Wind, or a sci-fi movie with Star Wars (including, when you think about it, the new films). It's an unfair comparison you will not read here...aside from this one paragraph of course!

No; I prefer comparing this film to a similar underdog, love-or-hate type treasure flick, like The Goonies. In fact, that Steven Spielberg film is so much like this one --young boy grows up to find old treasure he was told about as a boy-- you could've changed a few names, titled this Goonies 2, and nobody would be the wiser. How much this sounds like a "good" or "bad" thing to you is directly proportional to your enjoyment of this film. Personally, I'm one of the small scattering of fans who think of Goonies as a cult hit, so I had a good time. It's all in your perspective.

It's just that the moments this film works --when it's a free-wheeling flight of whimsy-- that are the most enjoyable. The almost Mission Impossible style methods that Benjamin uses to steal the Declaration of Independence before the "bad guys" do it absolutely brilliant, as are the little nuances that lead him step by step to the secret treasure (which, spoilers notwithstanding, is not a let-down in the least). There's even some witty banter between the heroes, particularly when bouncing a one-liner against the unreality of the plot. Says Riley when they discover the obligatory secret tunnel in a crypt, "So, who wants to go into the creepy tunnel in the tomb first?"

Indeed, the critics using Raiders as a template are quite disappointed. This is only to be expected. If I were rating this film in comparison to Raiders of the Lost Ark, I'd be a lot less forgiving. However, at no point did the promos sell it like that, with even some of the lead characters disbelieving the plot Gates placed before them. As the grand finale plays out, you may not be thinking of Oscar gold, but I definitely felt the film offered as much entertainment value as any other treasure hunt I've seen in the past 10 years. The point here is simply to suspend belief and have fun. So what if "reality" must play in a different theater entirely?

The DVD: The sad part of this review is its bad timing. Too many new games, movies, and DVDs have been released the same week as this film, so I must cut this review short with a quick summary of the DVD's extras. If I have the time, I will review these extras in full at a later date, but you get the idea:

	Final Rating : Small Crater. An imaginative premise that doesn't reach the potential it could have, yet is still filled with matinee fun.
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National Treasure

A Techtite Review