Too many clues, too few realistic outcomes

Rating: 4/10 (22 November 2004)

I have the perfect idea for a film. Underneath my bed mattress, there is a stain that if you squint just right, it kinda looks like an arrow pointing to the bathroom the other side of the hall. In the bathroom there is a can of Gillette shaving cream that if you read the label, it is noted that their office is located in Boston. Go to Boston and you will quickly be reminded by everyone you bump into that the Red Sox won the World Series for the first time in almost a hundred years. They beat the St. Louis Cardinals, so our adventure would take us to the famous Gateway Arch in Missouri. Now if you consider that the Red Sox beat the Cardinals winning four straight games, it would suggest that if you stand at the Arch when the clock strikes four, then the shadow it casts will lead you to a buried treasure. Except, don't expect to find the treasure right away. While digging through underground power lines and water pipes, you will then find a chamber that hasn't been opened for hundreds of years. When you enter the chamber, you will use the Gillette shaving can and a World Series ticket to make a key that opens to another room that has a ladder that leads back to my bedroom. The final chapter will contain all the excitement as I find a five dollar bill under my bed that I obviously have no idea how it ever got there or how long it has lay in its darkened quarters.
Preposterous? Yeah. Insidious? Without question. But when compared to the new Nicolas Cage film, National Treasure, it isn't that far of a stretch. In fact, pull in an A-list star, and Disney might even give you a sizable blank check and find you a director to film this confusing enigma of a film.
Granted, I am well aware of the liberties I am taking but I wondered if the masterminds behind National Treasure thought the same. Their film follows the adventures of Ben Gates (Cage) whose family has been entrusted with solving an ancient riddle whose clues lead to a treasure trove of riches and artifacts. But these aren't your ordinary right-in-front-of-your-face type of clues. These are ingenious riddles that are so complicated only an incredibly intelligent history buff with remarkable problem solving and innovative skills could ever figure. Or Ben Gates. So complicated in fact, you wonder if those that had hidden the treasure had ever wanted it to be found again. Clues like the clocks time on the back of a one hundred dollar bill, a hidden pipe buried in a ships' frozen tomb and the shadow that a tower casts at an exact time on another building. Of course, as the trailers so nicely spell out for us common folk, the biggest clue remains at the back of the Declaration of Independence where an invisible map is locatednaturally.
The obtaining of the map is Ben's biggest obstacle. How can you steal the Declaration of Independence? Well, thanks to his incredible ingenuity and a computer geek sidekick named Riley (Justin Bartha), Ben undertakes an elaborate plan to secure the Declaration for the purpose of his family quest. The plan will consist of going to the National Library to look at blueprints of both the building and the security devices surrounding the document, fake ID's, tapping into the security monitoring cameras, tricking the heat sensors to thinking there is a temperature variance and working on getting the document extracted during a rather convenient gala going on in the building the same evening.
Of course, they could have saved themselves all the brain cramps in thinking of such complex plan and taken the approach of the other team in search of the same treasure and just taken an underground vent to the location and using a stun gun, demobilize the security and take the Declaration. But where is the fun in that?
Along the way, Ben Gates is able to retain the reluctant services of Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger) who is in charge of keeping the Declaration safe and tags along for the wild ride to ensure the document does not in any way get damaged (except of course when she uses lemon juice to reveal the map hidden on its underside). Luckily for the crew, she is only a part time desk jockey and spends the rest of her days as some kind of stunt woman that can hang on to speeding truck doors with one hand or swing from a collapsed staircase to a safe landing platform while trying to escape from the evil Ian Howe (Sean Bean) who is also in search of the treasure if only for its monetary value. If this all sounds like it is more than the average mouthful, you are not alone. This is a movie that never tries to be smarter than it needs to be (it is Disney after all), but does throw a lot of things at you (I ducked once just having the kitchen sink miss my noggin'). It is definitely one of those movies that if you step out for more popcorn, you may not be able to piece together what has happened since you departure.
Giving credit where it is due, the movie does move at a nice clip towards an ending that may be ridiculous, but at least it is no less plausible than any of the events that lead to its climax. The acting is ample with Cage giving his usual steady performance in a paycheck role and Kruger who is proving that she can hold her own amongst the big boys. Harvey Keitel pops up in a wasted role as the police agent trying to track down the missing Declaration and although it was nice to see him in something mainstream, I wish he would have passed on this particular project.
National Treasure will probably open big and will no doubt be talked about for a sequel if the audiences show it any attention after its initial weekend. I was surprised that the trailer (which was one of the worst in recent memory) heralded the director Jon Turteltaub who's track record consists of just a handful of projects, but I can say that he did better with this script than say, Stephen Sommers did with any of The Mummy entries.
It's just that National Treasure tries to be too much. If it shortened the amount of clues that brought them around the country and focused more on the adventure, maybe they could have an Indiana Jones for the new millennium type of series. Instead, I left the theatre feeling as I had traveled with them from clue to clue and having jet lag is no way to leave a theatre.
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