National Treasure
I’d been wanting to see this since I saw the Trailer about 8 months back. Bad reviews had made me worried, but not so much; I thought I’d watch 2 hours of reasonably good rubbish. I was wrong. I loved it. It was BRILLIANT.* It helped that by going to all the sights I saw on a recent holiday to Washington and New York, it was a form of holiday diary, only much more fun that cine-8 projected home-movies.
It had all my favourite genres in one handy film. Great heist featuring the now-obligatory man in van outside scene of crime monitoring things (I blame Sneakers – another superb flick). An ancient mystery, derring-do, stunts, hidden treasure beneath the streets. I’ve heard it’s a rip-off of the Da Vinci Code; I could say having not read it, but so what? Because it mentions the Templars? Take such hokey-millenarian rockism away from me. They hit the streets first, and good luck to them.
Anyway, if you like Indy, or loved the Goonies, chances are you’ll like this. It’s nicely paced, characters are crudely drawn but pleasing. There’s nothing mystical about it, so that takes care of my major problem with the Tomb Raider flicks. Sure, you might find the Declaration of Independence veneration stuff a bit much, but I love the idealism of the democratic aspects of the Amercian Revolution. The idea that the Masons were great is harder to sustain, as whatever lofty ideals might have animated them in the 18th Century, nowwadsdy their ambitions are limited to getting a corpulent businessmen off a traffic fine in Blackburn. But no matter. See it.
* NB – I am an idiot
* Spoiler alert * – the biggest let down was when the male and female leads kiss. I know they are both white, so it was bound to happen, but this was such a boy’s movie it really didn’t need it. The ‘courtship’ such as it takes place due to the recognition that they both dig old documents and history and stuff like that. It would have been sweeter to leave it up in the air, but no. Kiss they must, and I was taken back to being about 8 and thinking ‘yuck! Rubbish kissing! More discovering ancient secrets!’