Terrific

Rating: 9/10 (28 May 2008)

Treasure Hunter Ben Gates (Cage) learns that his great-grandfather may have participated in the Lincoln Assassination and sets out to prove great-grand-daddy innocent.
Give me a grand conspiracy theory, and a treasure hunt and I'm yours. And, that is exactly what we have here. Of course, one has to suspend beliefs that some things can't be done: looking for clues in the Queen of England's office, the Oval Office, and perhaps, the hardest to suspend: kidnapping the President of the United States. But, it all works and quite smoothly, I might add. The pace and the tension are near perfect. There are some drawbacks, however (There you go spoiling things again).
The car chase in London went on for too long and wasn't exciting. Why have it? The water scenes near the end of the movie were confusing, and although I knew what was going on, I couldn't grasp the scheme of the set in the sense I didn't know where everyone was -- not sure the director knew either.
The acting by all was fine, but Harvey Keitel was wasted here. Ed Harris has the face of a good guy and he's made to be the villain and seemed to have trouble with that. "Hey, he has the face of a good guy, get someone else!" Jon Voight was made to look like Philip Seymour Hoffman. Bruce Greenwood, a Cliff Robertson clone, is terrific and we need to see more of him. I was sad to his scenes end.
And, the Queen playing Jon Voight's wife. Terrific. (That wasn't the Queen, you know). Now, I suppose you are going to tell me it was that Mirren woman? And, Nicolas Cage was the glue that kept it all together. Terrific. What a guy!
The love interest between Ben and Abigail (Kruger) was there in name only. And that's a good thing because the chemistry just wasn't there to begin with.
(So you didn't like it?) Are you kidding? I loved it. Like I said, give me a conspiracy and a treasure hunt and I'm yours. The rest of the stuff doesn't matter too much. Well, the Ed Harris thing was really bad. He shouldn't be made to play a villain.
Violence: Yes, Sex: No, Nudity: No, Language: No