May 21, 2008
National Treasure (2004)
Should I see it?
Me: No.
My wife: Yes, absolutely.
(hint: go with her recommendation)
Me: No.
My wife: Yes, absolutely.
(hint: go with her recommendation)
Short Review: Nicholas Cage gives a spotless impression of someone acting.
My long-suffering wife really likes this movie. I, on the other hand, found it forced and annoying. I was hoping for a simple no-brain action film. I received my no-brain action film in addition to an intrusive musical score, weak scripting and absolutely no inventiveness. I know this is supposed to be a vacuous popcorn McMovie and not subject to deep scrutiny, but even under the lightest of standards I found it to come up lacking. Then again, my long-suffering wife enjoyed that she didn’t have to give it a second thought – she really liked it.
Look at similar movies like The Rock or Armageddon. These are big, fat stupid movies but they were done properly. They didn’t get too tripped up in their own narrative and were focused like a laser. They begin at point “A” then move directly to “B”, no fussing with the minutia. This script stops consistently to allow Cage to explain what he is doing and thinking. The motivations of characters should be as self-evident as possible. When explanation is needed, screenwriter(s) Jim Kouf (among others) handles the complex history well. My complaint is that he has to handle it too often. My long-suffering wife thinks that it was interesting and enjoyed the whole film.
I really did want to enjoy this film. I love it when I can sit back and turn my brain off and enjoy a stupid Hollywood film. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get into this film even when I wanted to. For me, it was like trying to get to sleep while a dripping faucet keeps tapping. I’d sit back and start to find something I liked and then ‘ping’, the overbearing musical score would kick in. I’d try to ignore it and settle back down – ‘ping’, I’d realize Nicholas Cage has been playing the same role for over ten years – he doesn’t even bother to comb his remaining hair any differently for his various roles anymore. - 'ping’, Cage would piece together unrelated pieces of the puzzle in mere seconds and come to a wild conclusion that would drag the narrative kicking and screaming to the next scene. Dragging the metaphor out, my wife slept like a baby.
Overall, I can’t recommend this film. You can do far better for your money. Then again, I can’t see the forest for the trees with films like this. My long-suffering wife likes this movie immensely. She highly recommends this movie as a good dumb diversion. Given that I’m a loud-mouthed curmudgeon who can’t stop and smell the cinematic flowers - perhaps you’d be better off listening to her.
Related Reviews:
Nicholas Cage movies
Lord of War (2005)
World Trade Center (2006)
Ghost Rider (2007)
Other Critic's Reviews:
Entertain Your Brain
Movie Vault
posted by Michelle Obama's Left Nut at 8:00 PM
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3 Comments:
Wonderful review, dude. :-)
Actually, internalize the debate, there, and you have my reaction. The score didn't bother me as much, but I did feel like the script suffered from a lack of motivation and connectedness--why should the characters do any particular "this" at any particular "then"? More than that, though, I was primed to hate it, as its pseudo-history was going to be totally bogus, and...in fact, history of any kind was pretty entirely irrelevant, as the plot and background were so wholly phantasmagorical.
In the end, I enjoyed the movie. More than Sahara? eh, maybe. Both pretty bad movies. Both gave me fun moments with lead actors whose game I like, when they're on. Both gave me preposterous pseudohistorical bits which were so silly and irrelevant that--who could hate 'em?
You're absolutely right about the lack of compulsion on the character's part. There this forced feeling to everything about the film.
Sahara? Phew! Man, that one is far worse than this McMovie. Why'd you have to go bring up Sahara? Now I got the dry heaves.
I first saw Sahara on a trans-Pacific flight. Perhaps the setting biased me in its favor. No parachute, y'see.
I'd still have to go with the toss-up between the two. :-)
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