i can't believe i paid for this

Rating: 3/10 (6 December 2004)

NATIONAL TREASURE is anything but, believe me. i came into this movie with poor expectations but a heart full of hope. i'd been in the mood to watch a good explorers/adventurers flick and finding the recent movie well a bit dry i caved in to the first one that came around. i should tell any one who considers to watch this movie that nicholas cage (who i believe to be the most useless and overrated actor of our day) fails to inspire, yet again, marvelously. apparently he was paid to be be a model for hair plugs and bad highlights because i didn't see much acting in this movie at all. some of the worst "acting" scenes are shared with fellow Oscar winner jon voight. someone should notify the academy and have their awards taken from them.
this movie hosts such an abundant array of misguided and utterly terrible choices that it is difficult to place the blame of failure on any one aspect. is it the terrible script and story? the sub-par acting? the shoddy and cliché directing? the poor choreographed and conceived over-long action sequences? maybe it's the combination of it all.
benjamin franklin gates, our movie's protagonist, is probably the most pedantic and boring jeopardy contestant wannabe that the silver screen has ever seen. not to mention that nicholas cage brings absolutely no life or depth to this singularly annoying and insufferable know-it-all. the makers of the movie were trying to sell us on the idea that ben is a morally constant genius with a love of history and adventure. thing is, he's really a humorless sap who is entirely socially inept. this part could have been better managed by a better, younger, and good looking actor, but i doubt it would have made up for the rest of the film.
the "national treasure" of this movie isn't so much a treasure as it is pirate's booty from centuries of yore. it's not to have one amazing treasure with singular mythological and inherent value, it has to be bigger, better. according to the logic of the film, America's forefathers--in all their freemasonry glory--stored invaluable treasures that were plundered by the romans from the egyptians and kept hidden by a secret society of knights in order to keep it out of British hands. but wait, they left a treasure map on the back of the declaration of independence which takes half of the movie to steal. the rest of the movie revolves around ben's cleverness and social ineptitude getting the hottest archivist to fall in love with him and keeping his hip, young computer genius sidekick at bay. there's also something about a generational conflict with his dad. oh, and there are bad guys trying to steal the treasure for their own profit. i mean ben doesn't want the money, he wants to lay claim to helping solve a great mystery of American history. right.
wait for the last minute twist. so last minute and so cliché that you might just hate harvey keitel for the rest of your life for making this movie.
this movie is what's wrong with Hollywood today. that this movie is top box office material is what's wrong with movie audiences today. it panders to the worst part of the American pop consciousness and, despite its attempts to be clever and intelligent, aides in the dumbing down of every one who watches it--including myself. NATIONAL TREASURE succeeds at being the fluffiest, worst, and most embarrassing movie of my generation. i'm sorry to see that so many people liked it. but then again, i'm not surprised.
* out of 4*