National Treasure

Let me start out by saying, I didn't dislike "National Treasure." It's not a bad film. It's a good go to the movies, eat some popcorn (except for me, I detest popcorn), and just sit back and enjoy the ride kinda film. It's clever and makes you think more than your typical action-adventure film. All that being said, I was still kinda disappointed with the flick as a whole. It just felt kinda "disjointed" to me. Take "The DaVinci Code," "Tomb Raider," and "Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade"and throw them all together... those are all fine works that I enjoyed on their own, but when you mix them all together it doesn't work out quite as well as you would think. My biggest problem with the film was the flow of the first 1/3 of the picture into the last 2/3 of the picture. The first 1/2 hour or so is basically a heist film in which Nic Cage devises a way to steal the Declaration of Independence. It's far-fetched and requires some serious suspension of disbelief to buy into and I just really didn't. After that the movie picks up. It turns into more of an action-adventure film as Nic and company start following a series of historical clues on the path to locating a mythical treasure cache. The clues they follow are all based on historical fact. They are cleverly tied together and are the most interesting aspect of the film. Nic Cage is fine as Benjamin Franklin Gates. It's the type of character we've seen him play before so it wasn't much of a stretch for him. Sean Bean is hot and plays a great bad guy. Justin Bartha is Cage's "sidekick" and he gives an outstanding performance. He's the comic relief in the pic, but he's witty without being stupid or annoying. So, like I said, I didn't dislike "National Treasure." It was a fun movie. It just wasn't as good as I had hoped it would be.