Rating of
2.5/4
"National Treasure" by Yojimbo
Yojimbo - wrote on 04/16/12
Nicolas Cage plays Ben Gates, a man obsessed with finding a legendary treasure who stumbles on a clue that leads him to a code on the back of the Declaration of Independence. National Treasure is purely film-making by numbers; there's the wise-cracking side kick, evil gun-toting (and inevitably English) villain, loads of races against time and a ridiculously contrived love interest (I've no idea who the curator of the National Archive is, but I'm confidently betting that they're not a 'hottie'...) But, as anyone who has seen Hudson Hawk or Sahara can tell you, that is something that can sometimes go quite spectacularly wrong. This however is not the case with National Treasure, and it does exactly what it sets out to do; it's a cheerfully unpretentious family orientated adventure that even throws in a bit of edutainment on American history. It's no Raiders Of The Lost Ark (in fact the story is pretty much just a kiddie version of Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade with a bit of James Bond style gadgetry thrown in) but anyone who enjoyed The Mummy will probably enjoy this too.
