Colossal best-seller (and I can say colossal when it’s number one for nearly two-hundred weeks) “The Davinci Code” is going to experience the “adapted to the big screen” treatment in a little under a year, and the much anticipated adaptation has drawn much expectations from its hardcore following. But leave it to Disney to rip from its innards and offer up their own generic carbon copy. One major vitriol I had from the release that many critics haven’t exactly touched on was that “National Treasure” is an antecedent as a concept. Never have I seen such a blatant, and shameless rip-off of “The Davinci Code” before, but this is Disney for you. Rather then licking their wounds, they invented an American version of the same story.
Instead of a legendary Italian painting, it’s a legendary American document, instead of the map being drawn within the seams of the Mona Lisa, the map is behind the document, substitute older distinguished hero for younger flashier hero, secret brotherhood for mercenaries, et al. And to a further extent, you exchange Tom Hanks for–Nicolas Cage. It’s utterly disgraceful, Disney. My contempt for you grows ever more resolute. And my contempt for the American audience who went to see this continues to grow further. As a film for children, this is not bad, it has villains, heroes, history lessons shoved down our throats, and cool effects, but looking at it from the view of someone who basically saw this abomination through jaded eyes, it’s a bad film. It’s a bad film with bad acting, and dialogue that falls flat on its hind legs. And within this mystery that attempts to be formed in to a labyrinth, it only invokes more questions but to relevance of the plot.
When you get down to it in the end, the founding fathers who wanted to keep this treasure a secret really were attention whores who spent immense numbers of time hiding a treasure, scattering the clues around the world, and creating magnificent displays. And if the treasure is so priceless (or as crudely described “the treasure of treasures”), they’re willing to travel around the world and scatter these clues? And for reasons I could never comprehend, the writers felt inclined to remind us every five minutes the enormity of this plot (This is the biggest treasure in the world!) and they literally force feed us the historical nonsense as if it’s also monumental. In one two minute scene, the words “Declaration of Independence” are repeated six times (You’re stealing the declaration of independence! I’m not letting you steal the declaration of independence! He’s getting away with the declaration of independence! Don’t worry this is not the declaration of independence!)
I’d have been tolerant of the ripping from the production crew had the writing and acting had been tolerable, but nothing is given to us in terms of substance. Cage’s acting is wooden and unconvincing. His urgency and immediacy to solve this riddle is surprisingly downplayed. But I was never sure if this was a fault of the hackneyed writing or hackneyed acting by Cage. And can we really take this hero seriously when he dresses up like a lounge lizard for most of the film? He approaches every situation here with a monotonous smug tone of voice as if he’s so sure of himself, which is a juxtaposition since everyone makes it painfully clear nothing in this film is certain. The heroes and villains are presented in bold blacks and whites. The heroes are humble, intelligent, crafty individuals, and the villains are devilish, violent, crude mustache twirlers. No one here is complex or conflicted, but I didn’t expect that from Bruckheimer.
And did I mention the henchmen here couldn’t shoot the side of a barn? And poor Christopher Plummer. Such a fine actor is put to waste with a measly cameo that gratuitously and crudely sets the stage for the film. Among the rest of the cast are Jon Voight channeling Sean Connery from “The Last Crusades” and his character from “Tomb Raider”, Justin Bartha as the comic relief who is anything but and plays a character whose whole concept is based on snappy one-liners, Diane Kruger as the prudish shrew who goes along the journey and Sean Bean who plays the villain. Bean can do these roles in his sleep, and half the time he looks it. Most of the cast here looks bored, especially when delivering hokey dialogue with terrible delivery. “National Treasure” is hokey, even for a wannabe serial. It’s a production so intent on topping the upcoming adaptation it becomes embarrassing.
The dialogue and writing (courtesy of Jim Kouf, and Cormac and Marianne Wibberley) as a whole is sophomoric and utterly atrocious. They shove the history down the audiences throats, but never learn how to deliver it with logic. If Gates is so wanted for stealing a priceless American artifact, how can he walk in and out of stores willy nilly? In one of the most ridiculous scenes, after finally claiming the Declaration of Independence, they seek to discover the map behind the document, Voight’s character suggests a “re-agent”, so what do they assume? Lemons. It does the trick. Lemons which they happen to have handy, sliced triangularly, in a bowl beside them. If they did not know they needed a re-agent to bring out the map, why did they have the small lemons in hand? Why did they have a large bowl of lemons in their refrigerator? Who in god’s name keeps lemons in their fridge? Give me a break.
Then on one utterly hokey sequence intended as tense, Bartha’s character sends a young boy back and forth in to a museum to gather the capitalized letters of the D.O.I which gather in to a message, he needs one more word, which his scout is looking at and is being tailed by Bean’s character. If the young boy reaches Bartha’s character, the jig is up, but–ah ha–luckily for him the last word he needs pulls up in the form of a liberty bell ad on the side of a bus very conveniently, which gives him his final clue. Don’t you wish life was like that? It’s constant idiotic plot devices such as that, which make “National Treasure” something that should die in obscurity. In the end, it’s a poor man’s “Indiana Jones” (sans the brilliance), a generic rip-off of “The Davinci Code” (sans the labyrinths), a stale “Tomb Raider” (sans the hot chick), and a limp “Sherlock Holmes” (sans the engrossing mysteries). Though Turtletaub’s direction is inspired, everything else from acting, to plot, and dialogue falls flat in a bland reproduction of the inevitable “Davinci Code” adaptation.