mediocre adventure film

Rating: 5/10 (5 September 2007)

"National Treasure" is not a movie I have a lot to say about so I'll try and keep my comments brief. It's a decent family film I assume, but not that much fun for me. I love the old-school adventure movies and even a lot of the nostalgic films that "throwback" to this time, i.e. "Indiana Jones" and "Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow". "National Treasure" on the other hand is a modern-day story and not a period story, but the style is somewhat similar in its lack of pretense and focus on adventure styled action that's less violent than what we see in most "action movies" these days.
I was amused to read through some of the comments and see that a lot of people hated the film because it was "stupid" or variations on that theme. Probably they don't realize that pretty much everyone over the age of 12 who actually enjoyed the film knew that it was a stupid movie but were mature enough to enjoy it anyway. Nobody should expect a history lesson from the film, although it is somewhat amusing to draw such an adventure out of America's founding fathers' Masonic legacy. In the end though the film's reverence for Ben Franklin et al felt a bit too heavy-handed, as if they were some kind of wizards of antiquity.
So I was ready to drop all intellectual pretense, but still the movie was only mildly entertaining. The comic relief offered by Justin Bartha was distracting; they should either have labored to make him a good straight sidekick or a goofy humorous one, but instead tried for both and failed at each. I guess he was supposed to be relatively "normal" and someone who the average "Gen X" or "Gen Y" or whatever it's called now could identify with. To me he was just a lame character played by a virtual non-actor. Not much more from leading lady Diane Kruger. Lovely to look at, but she's been given a horrible role here in which her only purpose is to make love to Nicholas Cage and be the butt of bad humiliating jokes. Cage is all right but that's about it, not even as much fun in this one as he was in the much cheesier "Ghost Rider." The idea of him being from a family of treasure hunters who are discredited by the academic community is a good one. Casting professional estranged father Jon Voight as his daddy wasn't. Even more embarrassing was Harvey Keitel in a thankless role as a federal agent. I'm sure this film paid for a few interesting independent films for Keitel but that doesn't mean I have to like seeing him in such a dull role far beneath his capabilities.
The worst thing about the film for me was the music. It was just the most generic pounding theme, alternating big symphonic bombast with grating electronic drumbeats. This music is a perfect metaphor describing the film itself  loud, empty, not as much fun as it should be.
It wasn't a total disaster though, just not something I can really embrace because all the fun parts are diluted by the things that annoyed me. I did think it was an attractive film, and the pace was pretty good. I probably would have enjoyed it slightly more in the theater. Sean Bean was a pretty good villain, more restrained than most movie bad guys. I really enjoy the idea of the treasure, it excites me more as a student of history than for its value in money, so I sympathized with the main character's ethical standard regarding disposing of the treasure. Of course in reality the founding fathers put America deeply in debt with the expense of the Revolutionary War against Imperial England, causing a tax on distillation which in turn led to the famous "Whiskey Rebellion" in Pennsylvania, and if they had access to any kind of treasure whatsoever they would have used it for the nation's benefit instead of hiding it away where it would do no good to anyone. But whatever.. it's still a fun idea. I just wish they had done more with it.