Better than I had expected

Rating: 8/10 (3 April 2005)

"National Treasure" seemed the most innocuous of the offerings at the discount house, and one of the kids had been agitating to see it for a month or so. I gave in.
I'm glad I did.
"National Treasure" is a welcome throwback of a film. The hero's a little scuffed around the edges, but clearly one of the good guys. The reluctant (at first) heroine is spunky, smart and beautiful. The baddie is wealthy, charming and accented. And the sidekick's a scream.
Nicolas Cage does well in that he doesn't try to play Benjamin Gates like Harrison Ford playing Indiana Jones. There's a bit of the geek buried none too deep in Cage's performance, and the only time he gets rough with a bad guy, he hurts his hand.
Justin Bartha's overgrown-kid persona provides plenty of comic relief -- and it's a relief in itself that "National Treasure" doesn't fall back on the "kill the sidekick" formula. The film needs him, and it needs him all the way through.
Diane Kruger and Sean Bean do a fine job of portraying two sides of the same coin: Immigrants obsessively chasing the American Dream. The difference is in their interpretation of the dream.
There's one on screen death, not gory. There's little, if any, profanity. Brainpower, not firepower, carries the day. And there's a genuine regard for learning throughout the film (although, admittedly, a few of the facts are off).
And yes, there are moments when you realize that being an old-school film hero means leading a particularly charmed life. After all, given the seasonal changes in the sun's daily position, what are the odds of it making a shadow fall just so -- just when the good guys need it to? But that's the way it is in a good hidden-treasure epic: When truth and right are on your side, someone makes sure you get the breaks.
There's a moral buried in the ending, too, that can be taken either way. Sharing is good -- but is it sharing of physical wealth, or of a political ideal? Given the obvious reverence for the Founding Fathers and their philosophies in "National Treasure," the answer might be "and" rather than "or." All in all, far better than I had expected. Not earth-shatteringly significant, but family-friendly, well-paced and a whole lot of escapist fun.