Last night, James and I saw the movie National Treasure. Without a doubt, it is the best movie about the Declaration of Independence I have ever seen. There was action, humor (although many times the writers were a little off with their jokes), a beautiful girl and lots of American history.
In fact, they can't do a sequel because they have used up all of our history. We are indeed a young country, only 228 years old which is like a teenager in civilization years, yet in a short two hours, Jerry Bruckheimer sums up the whole of our American history from colonization to 1850. The only thing we have left is the Civil War, Great Depression and World War II.
However, many films have been seen about World War II and with a right-on performance by the amazing Denzel Washington in Glory, that is all an audience needs for the Civil War. So would National Treasure II have a plot about the government hiding the country's funds from 1929 to the present and how Nicolas Cage will find it and restore our economy? What a script that would be.
The movie had an effective premise, a likable, eccentric hero in Cage, and some well staged action sequences that keep the violence to a kid-friendly level. Sean Bean played a good bad guy...again. Yet, despite appealing turns by Cage and co-star Justin Bartha, it lacks the colorful characters, dramatic suspense, and wit of Steven Spielberg's Raiders of the Lost Ark trilogy. Instead of Indiana Jones' globe trotting, Cage and the gang trot around America (but not even the complete America, just the thirteen colonies).
Except for Bartha's wisecracking assistant, the other characters are pretty bland. It's far from Bruckheimer's Pirates of the Carribbean: The Secret of the Black Pearl, which is full of personality, due to Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush.
I do recommend seeing the popcorn thriller if not for the entertainment, but to learn something about our Founding Fathers and our country. Also, Diane Kruger was extremely attractive.
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