Take Lara Croft from Tomb Raider and make her a him and what do you get? You get Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage) in National Treasure. It definitely has a very similar type of story as Ben Gates has been spending his whole life searching for a treasure hidden by our forefathers in the 1800s. Of course our forefathers didn't just hide it and forget about it, they put clues all around the nation to help a certain someone find the treasure had they the knowledge of it. Ben Gates' father, grandfather, great-grandfather and so on all tried searching for the treasure and passed this task down to each generation and Ben finally was able to start piecing together the clues getting ever closer to the treasure.
But an expedition like this takes a lot of money and because of this Ben goes into business with a ruthless treasure hunter named Ian Howe (Sean Bean) who betrays Ben in greed for the treasure. Both Ben and Ian know that the next clue resides on the back of the declaration of independence and they also know that the other one is planning on stealing it. Well lucky for Ben he steals it first and is able to escape with it and go on searching for further clues, but Ian is close on his heals trying to get the declaration and more clues in search of the treasure. This is basically the rest of the plot as Ian chases Ben and his companions Abigail Chase and Riley Poole as they run around collecting clues and searching for the treasure.
Now when I first saw this movie I noticed a PG rating and figured PASS! I mean PG they can't even swear or shoot a gun can they? (Ok maybe a bit of an exaggeration) Anyways, I decided to give my best friend Nicolas Cage the benefit of the doubt and give the movie a try.
The storyline really isn't anything new, like I said I think it's the male version of Lara Croft from Tomb Raider. Also a lot of people also compared it to Indiana Jones, but I don't think it comes close to stacking up with any of those. The action and adventure is enough to keep your attention throughout, although it does seem to drag out a bit by the end though as they keep finding a clue that leads to another clue that leads to another clue. I was wondering if they were ever going to find a freakin' treasure.
Performance wise it's all around decent, nothing spectacular, but I didn't really expect spectacular from National Treasure as it's an action/adventure. On a side note Abigail Chase played by Diane Kruger is probably the most attractive document restorer ever!! Back to the review.
My overall impression of National Treasure can probably be summed up with the word "decent". It's nothing spectacular, but not awful either. It held my attention most of the way through. With the PG rating it's perfectly suitable for a younger audience (8+ years old??) and might be aimed a bit more towards them than the adult population. I would think it would make a good family movie. If you liked Lara Croft (for the storyline, not just seeing Angelina Jolie in a body suit) then National Treasure should be on your watch list or if you have some kids, this would be a great movie to watch with them, but it's definitely nothing special and there are plenty of other movies out there worthy of your attention.
