Fun and Charm Returns

Rating: 7/10 (3 January 2008)

This is the second time that I've reviewed this film. IMDb, you lost my first one, so I am having to write this from memory. Fortunately, my opinion of the film hasn't changed.
As a non-American, I am constantly amazed at that country's ability to mythologize and almost deify its history and iconic figures. American nationalism has a streak of idolatry about it that enables films like NTBOS to be created. Americans know that they live in a Great Power, and are able to create stories to celebrate it, even something as lighthearted as this.
NTBOS is essentially a video game with a narrative follow-though. It is Indiana Jones set in the modern day, but reducing the world to that contained within American boarders, something that many Americans find deeply comforting.
A central theme in this film (and the authors have the decency to give some depth to the proceedings) is the place in history of ones actions, and the connection to the past through one's relatives, and the bequeathing of moral responsibility from one generation to the next.
This film is a quest myth, and like all good quests, what is sought is potentially ennobling to the questors. And all the characters, even the putative villain portrayed by Ed Harris, seek merely to make a positive contribution, and to be remembered well, achieving immortality in the process.
The acting isn't great in this film, and it doesn't have to be: the actors merely have to look like they are having fun whilst Jon Turtletaub puts them through their paces and pays them a lot of money whilst doing it. I don't think they are acting though. Since Nick Cage can't act, what we are left with is genuine enthusiasm and enjoyment that is readily transferred to the paying audience. A fine entertainment!