National Treasure has the hokiest plot that you'll ever find in a movie, but for some strange reason, it doesn't even matter. Somehow we are able to buy the incredibly ludicrous, conspiracy-theory story about how our nation's founding fathers got their hands on the greatest treasure known to man and then took great lengths to hide it. And not only did they hide it, but they left clues for others to find it centuries later. These clues were put on our money, our national monuments, and even on the Declaration of Independence. I admit that I feel silly as I write this summary, but this is, essentially, what this movie is about. It kind of reminded me of the idea behind the book, The Da Vinci Code, although admittedly I haven't read that one.
However, it is not the laughable farce that you might expect. Quite the contrary, it is a fun adventure that is appropriate for the whole family (with a couple of minor exceptions, which I'll get to). The latter feature is what really got me excited about the film. All too often movies that should be geared towards a younger audience are shamefully not; case in point: Spider-Man 1 and 2. In any case, I'm happy to report that I felt fine taking my nine-year-old to see it, and she absolutely loved it! The only misgiving I had as a parent involved seeing a father questioning a son if his girlfriend was pregnant (the same sort of inappropriate comedy bit appeared in another Jon Turteltaub film, While You Were Sleeping).
Anyway, not only is this a fun and exciting treasure-hunt movie, but it really whets the appetite for our nation's history. I expect there will be a lot of family vacations to Washington, D.C (seen above), Philadelphia, and even New York in the next few years for which the impetus was seeing this movie. My daughter is fascinated by U.S. Presidents and she just ate this stuff up. It really is enthralling to think about what secrets people like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin might have left for us to discover. Not that we would actually believe it, but it is fun to let our minds wander down that path of improbability.
What also makes this movie fun is the whole idea of following clues to find hidden treasure. I mean, that is every kid's dream, and it appeals not only to kids but to the kid in all of us. The movie opens with a montage telling us about the Gates family who was entrusted with the secret that this treasure does indeed exist and with an important clue to its discovery. John Adams Gates tells his young grandson, Benjamin Franklin Gates, about the treasure as an annoyed Patrick Henry Gates (Jon Voight, who plays the father who has given up on the idea) interrupts. We then are taken to the arctic where a grown up Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage) is closing in on solving the first clue..."The Secret Lies with the Charlotte."
The main struggle of this movie involves the race to steal the Declaration of Independence from its high-security stronghold in the Capitol building. It is not only a seemingly impossible feat, but it is a race because Ben Gates needs to get it before the bad guys do. It is a suspenseful experience which catapults us towards several other clues, with danger at every turn. In the end, however, we are rewarded with (no, I'm not going to spoil it!) a happy ending.
While I was able to accept almost everything that this movie would have me believe, there was one aspect that just didn't make sense to me. They make the claim that since such a treasure, worth billions, would be too great or too dangerous for one man to own, that it had to be hidden to avoid such a thing from happening. However, it was our entire nation that owned it at the time, wasn't it? Why wouldn't our founding fathers have used it to help to fund the government, or to feed and clothe the poor people of our nation, or for virtually ANY other cause besides just hiding it somewhere where it might never be found? Of course, it isn't even worth discussing, but it does demonstrate how far outside our realm of common thinking the makers of this movie dared to venture.
This is what movies SHOULD be...fun, exciting, thought provoking, appropriate for kids, and, did I say FUN?
Back