National Treasure (2004)
Directed by Jon Turteltaub
Modern treasure hunters, led by archaeologist Ben Gates, search for a chest of riches rumored to have been stashed away by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin during the Revolutionary War. The chest's whereabouts may lie in secret clues embedded in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, and Gates is in a race to find the gold before his enemies do.
16 connections found
View:
16 films that influenced National Treasure
What critics say influenced National Treasure
"Treasure" has a good idea for a roaring adventure, mixing "The Goonies" with some 9th grade history class lessons for thrills and chills.
It's the grown-up version of The Goonies , and by "grown-up" I mean the 18-34 year-old demographic that studios target when they produce loud and shiny entertainments featuring a blonde in a black dress running down a street.
Rather, “National Treasure” is more like a grown up version of “The Goonies.”
"National Treasure" does lose its way toward the end, where the climax seems to take place in either the leftover set from "The Goonies" or "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom."
This infantile excuse for an adventure yarn plays more like a triple-cross between The DaVinci Code, "CSI," and "The Amazing Race" than Raiders of the Lost Ark.
The finest adventure movies have an effortless feel; "The Adventures of Robin Hood," "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "The Princess Bride" and a handful of other classics flow flawlessly from kinetic adventure to kissing scene to plot stuff...and the audience never once thinks about looking at their collective watch.
Dont get me wrong: Raiders of the Lost Ark this aint.
That's a noble cause, yet I don't remember similar efforts from my youth say, "Raiders of the Lost Ark" or "Romancing the Stone" being quite this bland.
From Lara Croft to National Treasure , from The Mummy to Pirates of the Caribbean , they’re all more or less disposable also-rans in the shadow of a masterpiece.
Both Voight, as Benjamin Gates’ father, and Harvey Keitel, as the head of the FBI task force assigned to the theft of the Declaration of Independence, put in minor-key appearances, but their presence only serves to bolster the fact that National Treasure, for all its emphatic national history glee (Cage routinely dispenses nuggets of historical wisdom like he’s spitting pumpkin seeds), is an underdone pastiche of Raiders of the Lost Ark and a really tedious high school history class.
"National Treasure" does lose its way toward the end, where the climax seems to take place in either the leftover set from "The Goonies" or "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom."
The similarities between "National Treasure" and "Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade" are hard to miss: the father/son dynamic between career fortune-seekers, the cryptic clues leading them from one location to the next, the blond German girlfriend.
The irony should not be lost on the fact that David Fincher's Mank, a dramatized feature about the writing of one of Orson Welles's greatest films, Citizen Kane (1941), is being released by the streaming giant Netflix.
It's the same sort of performance Cage seems to give in all these Bruckheimer flicks (ie Gone in 60 Seconds and Con Air); Cage is awfully charismatic, however, so it's easy enough to overlook the lack of creativity on his part.
Advertisement
Cage is joined by Justin Bartha (last seen in "Gigli," doing a community theater rendition of Dustin Hoffman's "Rain Man" character), who plays the inevitable Snarky Sidekick, and by Diane Kruger (the utterly forgettable Helen of last summer's "Troy" ) as a skeptical National Archives historian in a low-cut dress.
There's the faintest whiff of ''To Catch a Thief" and ''North By Northwest."
There's the faintest whiff of ''To Catch a Thief" and ''North By Northwest."
The finest adventure movies have an effortless feel; "The Adventures of Robin Hood," "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "The Princess Bride" and a handful of other classics flow flawlessly from kinetic adventure to kissing scene to plot stuff...and the audience never once thinks about looking at their collective watch.
Restlessly directed by Jon Turteltaub, who showed no particular flair for adventure filmmaking in his wet Phenomenon and Instinct, the movie goes like a rocket, from one ornate clue to the next; National Treasure is more a detective story than a two-fisted adventure like the Indiana Jones movies.
.Director Jon Turteltaub also made “Cool Runnings,” “While You Were Sleeping,” “Phenomenon” and “Disney's The Kid.”
"National Treasure," directed with zealous energy by Jon Turteltaub ("Phenomenon," "Cool Runnings"), is very smart at its core, even a little educational -- do you know the name of the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, or how Manhattan's central thoroughfare came to be called "Broadway"? -- but it wears the clothes of an absurd Jerry Bruckheimer production.
And its clear that director Jon Turteltaub (responsible for such film failures as Cool Runnings and Instinct ) brings only the films lamest elements to the table.
Restlessly directed by Jon Turteltaub, who showed no particular flair for adventure filmmaking in his wet Phenomenon and Instinct, the movie goes like a rocket, from one ornate clue to the next; National Treasure is more a detective story than a two-fisted adventure like the Indiana Jones movies.
Instead let's marvel at how a trio of hack writers (collectively responsible for "Snow Dogs," "The 6th Day" and "I-Spy" ), coupled with a director whose best work is mediocre and pedestrian (Jon Turteltaub of "Phenomenon" and "Instinct" ), can take this dumb idea and make it even worse in every conceivable way.
Look at what the "creative" types behind this numbing mass of inanimate boredom have done before: director Jon Turteltaub gave us Disney's The Kid and Instinct ; the screenwriting team of Cormac and Marianne Wibberley perpertrated Bad Boys II and Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle ; screenwriter Jim Kouf is behind Taxi and Snow Dogs.
In the end, it’s the odd casting and unimaginative, workmanlike direction (from the man behind both the Anthony Hopkins potboiler Instinct and Disney’s Jamaican bobsled epic Cool Runnings) that make the painfully overlong National Treasure the exercise in mediocrity it is.
But for all the hoopla, Bruckheimer, screenwriters Cormac and Marianne Wibberley ("Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle") and director Jon Turteltaub ("The Kid") don't present anything much more intricate than a riddle from a Nancy Drew mystery -- supposedly contained in one of the letters written by Benjamin Franklin under the name Silence Dogood.
And its clear that director Jon Turteltaub (responsible for such film failures as Cool Runnings and Instinct ) brings only the films lamest elements to the table.
.Director Jon Turteltaub also made “Cool Runnings,” “While You Were Sleeping,” “Phenomenon” and “Disney's The Kid.”
"National Treasure," directed with zealous energy by Jon Turteltaub ("Phenomenon," "Cool Runnings"), is very smart at its core, even a little educational -- do you know the name of the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, or how Manhattan's central thoroughfare came to be called "Broadway"? -- but it wears the clothes of an absurd Jerry Bruckheimer production.
In the end, it’s the odd casting and unimaginative, workmanlike direction (from the man behind both the Anthony Hopkins potboiler Instinct and Disney’s Jamaican bobsled epic Cool Runnings) that make the painfully overlong National Treasure the exercise in mediocrity it is.
Advertisement
The finest adventure movies have an effortless feel; "The Adventures of Robin Hood," "Raiders of the Lost Ark," "The Princess Bride" and a handful of other classics flow flawlessly from kinetic adventure to kissing scene to plot stuff...and the audience never once thinks about looking at their collective watch.
Among the rest of the cast are Jon Voight channeling Sean Connery from “The Last Crusades” and his character from “Tomb Raider”, Justin Bartha as the comic relief who is anything but and plays a character whose whole concept is based on snappy one-liners, Diane Kruger as the prudish shrew who goes along the journey and Sean Bean who plays the villain.
It could’ve been what it is being marketed as, a kind of Tomb Raider meets Con Air.