This movie had great potential, but didn't use half of it

Rating: 5/10 (5 May 2005)

Do you know why books like Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code were so successful? The main characters in these adventure novels were much like the main characters of National Treasure: they were geniuses. However, even for the main character of Dan Brown's famous novel, it still took numerous pages to put together even one clue. See, the point is that Brown's book was realistic and life-like. National Treasure, however, seems to lack that quality while trying to do so many things in a short amount of time. For example, the movie tries to build on the characters and their histories, then the current issues, and then suddenly I was taken by surprise by the almost trivial love story that the director tried to stick in there. I mean, it's understandable that the movie has a time limit, but that just means that the story has to be made to fit the limit (or vice versa, if possible). For example, if Titanic had been made to be only half its length, the length of a normal film, none of the connections would've been made and the movie would definitely not have been so popular.
Away from the bad, however, the story was enticing and well thought out. The acting was also nice, though that's to be expected from top-notch actors like Nicholas Cage. The potential could have allowed this movie to be at least in IMDb's top 250, but I as the audience just didn't feel that bond to the movie as I felt in masterpieces like The Shawshank Redemption or Gladiator.
Overall, the movie may or may not be what you expect, and though it's definitely not on the same par as movies such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, it's worth seeing. I give it a 6/10 because it's still better than the average movie in today's culture.