National Treasure - Just say no
Dec. 30th, 2004 11:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
chrisvenusI went to the cinema this evening and as I was watching the film the only thoughts going through my mind were, well, they weren't polite.
The film had some OK action sequences but the plot was so painfully bad that, well, it was painful. Some pretty ropey science was involved too. I think overall the summary is that the plot was painful. The action sequences were kind of cool. The plot kept being painful. The geek was cool. And the realism of certain plot elements suggests that the geek was right when he suggested alien involvement.
I don't think words can do justice to how I feel about the film. Instead, let me tell you about some of the memorable scenes of this film. They are technically spoilers but it might be worth reading if you are considering goign to see the film. It will mean that the somewhat painful events can be seen as the comedy that they truly truly are...
The opening plot.
Oh boy this is where it starts. This is where the scene is truly set. Amidst scenes starting at the building of the third of the great pyramids and going through history we learn of a treasure that is huge and as time goes on different people capture it, adding their own loot to it. Given the size of it by the end they never really explain why it is always kept in one place or, indeed, how in practice a treasure of this size could actually be practically stolen. By the end of the film its revealed that its a football field size treasure room worth of loot.
Anyway, over this montage of images from history we learn of this treasure and that it remained unfound for a thousand years until the crusades when a bunch of people found it. I don't recall where but I'm sure it would cause historians to twitch. Anyway, these people who found it decided that it was too big a treasure to be owned by any one person so they would form a secret society. You'll never guess who the group was. Yeah, the Knights Templar. Well, of course they also created the masons and so on and they vowed to protect this treasure from ever being found by one person.
So they split up the treasure into thousands of small parts and spread it through the world using their society to disseminate it. This way the wealth would be able to do good and would never fall into one persons hands. Oh no, sorry, that wasn't how it went at all. That would have been how it went were they sensible. No, instead they smuggled it to america where the founding fathers and everybody else from american history that is cool (george washington, benjamin franklin and god knows who else - a bunch of people that nobody outside of america could even tell you who they are) helped to hide it from the british because clearly the british are evil and the group derived from the knights templar are clearly going to be anti british...
So, there's your background plot. Oh, and of course, the hero of the piece has the only known clue as to how to find this treasure. Because clearly if the treasure should never be owned and controlled by one person you should leave clues to its whereabouts...
The opening scene in present day
Well, clearly the kid who was in the opening scene and was given the only clue by his granfather, passed down in the family, has grown up into nicholas cage. And with the help of backing by a british guy, sean bean, has found the location mentioned in his first clue, a burried ship.
Now, as everybody knows once you have poured huge amounts of money into finding a ship burried in an ice flow, the best thing to do once you have used advanced computer techniques to locate where it has moved to by glacial drift (no indication of how they located it at all, of course) is to get out of your snowmobiles and have half a dozen of you walking across the ice with metal detectors, the kind you can probably buy from maplin for 50 quid or something. And what pained my most was that it beeped over a particular spot. So he swung it back over the spot and it beeped again.
Its a FUCKING SHIP. A ship. A big thing with loads of people on. WHy, in the name of all that makes sense in films, was there about a six inch patch of ice that set off the metal detector. And why didn't they try something like sonar to find the ship. Or, I don't know, something that didn't rely on total luck to find the ship.
Anyway, on the ship they discover the clue, an ornate pipe like thing. Now I think about it I think that first clue might hasve been the crack pipe that the writer was smoking. Anyway, after some very unscientific practices (if you have something that you need to press on an ink pad or something is the best plan of action to get a knife and take off your glove (in arctic lookign conditions) and cut your thumb so you bleed and then wipe the blood on your print before pressing that to paper to make the message?) it turns out that the next clue is on the declaration of independance. The british guy says "Ok, we'll steal it". Nicholas cage responds with something along the lines of "Oh my god! You can't possibly do that! I'd rather give up everything I hold dear than even contemplate that thought! Its anathema! Its...." *breaks down in tears at the thought of harm to the delcaration of independance* Its a slight exageration but it gets the idea across. Really.
So, after a bit of a fight, the british guy of course turning out to be truly truly evil on account of being british and not respecting the declaration of independance and, oh, make your own mind up on the way its going, the heros nearly get blown up and lose the clue but still remember the words.
And so it goes on...
So the good guy, decides, having had all the people like the FBI and the National Archives tell him he is a wakko for suggesting the declaration of independance is going to be stolen, that he is going to steal the declaration of independance because he will look after it nicely. I can only summise that shoudl Sean Bean have had his way he would have destroyed it, thus leaving the americans with no proof that they were in fact independant and so america would revert to being a british colony...
So, this guy, whose backing seems to be in history, decides to steal what is, apparently, americans most valuable possession. Well, clearly he and his ocomputer geek friend are perfect for the job. With skills and gadgets to rival james bond he gets the finger prints, passwords and everything else that he needs to access the thing. So, the geek deals with the two necessary security cameras (because of course there are only two) while the hero fo the piece does the rest. Meanwhile, the evil british man is preparing his hit squad to break in the explosive way. In the end the two groups of course meet and have a brief scuffle. The villains have of course, not being sneaky, had to deal with a whole guard to steal this thing that everybody guaranteed could not be stolen.
From this point on it actually gets better until we get to...
The magical spectacles...
So on the back of the declaration is a map. They've already used lemon juice and a hair dryer to bring out a set of information. THis information leads them to the key needed to see the rest of the map to the treasure. SO they follow the clues to the key. At a certain time the clock tower of liberty hall (or somewhere like that) will cast a shadow pointing to the next clue. What is the time? Well, on the 100 dollar bill there is a clock that has the time on it because its based on a painting done by a friend of Benjamin Franklin (or something like that). Anyway, at 2:22 they need to be at this clock tower. Never mind the fact that given the time you could work out where the shadow was with total simplicity, they have to actually be there...
So this clue leads them to the magical spectacles. Yup, you heard me, the magical spectacles. Built by Benjamin Franklin (or possibly somebody else, that was the name that seemed to be connected to most things) these glasses reveal the map on the back of the declaration. How? Well, the glasses are a bit more complicated than just single lenses. They have three lenses in front of each eye. The first clear and the next ones coloured. Just imagine those 3d glasses but with a bit more complicated engineering.
So, yeah, you look at the blank canvas on the back of the declaration and somehow, I'm entirely unclear on how, a message appeared. A fairly high resolutions message with pictures and everything. and as you flip out some of the coloured lenses a different message appears. Now, if there was a couloured pattern that resolved itself then that'd be cool. But it was a totally blank bit of canvas on the back. I have *no* idea how the hell these coloured lenses made not just one but three messages appear on the back of the declaration.
And the rest
To be fair though, I think that this is pretty much most of the bad bits of the film. The rest was quite cool. An entertaining escape from the FBI and... actually, a lot of the rest of it was just running around, to be fair. not very exciting... But there were some good lines in the film like "I'm coming with you" "no you're not" "If you weren't going to take me with you then you shouldn't have told me where you were going."
Oh, and of course most importantly the female lead was top totty. And I reckon that judging by her overdone eye makeup that she was a little bit goth. Though that might have been jsut my wishful thinking, she was a bit too blonde to be properly goth.
I think I feel better now. For those interested I might organise a repeat viewing of this film. With a minimum of 3 drinks before you are considered safe to watch the film. Heckling compulsory.
Dear god. And for *this* I missed a phone call...
The film had some OK action sequences but the plot was so painfully bad that, well, it was painful. Some pretty ropey science was involved too. I think overall the summary is that the plot was painful. The action sequences were kind of cool. The plot kept being painful. The geek was cool. And the realism of certain plot elements suggests that the geek was right when he suggested alien involvement.
I don't think words can do justice to how I feel about the film. Instead, let me tell you about some of the memorable scenes of this film. They are technically spoilers but it might be worth reading if you are considering goign to see the film. It will mean that the somewhat painful events can be seen as the comedy that they truly truly are...
The opening plot.
Oh boy this is where it starts. This is where the scene is truly set. Amidst scenes starting at the building of the third of the great pyramids and going through history we learn of a treasure that is huge and as time goes on different people capture it, adding their own loot to it. Given the size of it by the end they never really explain why it is always kept in one place or, indeed, how in practice a treasure of this size could actually be practically stolen. By the end of the film its revealed that its a football field size treasure room worth of loot.
Anyway, over this montage of images from history we learn of this treasure and that it remained unfound for a thousand years until the crusades when a bunch of people found it. I don't recall where but I'm sure it would cause historians to twitch. Anyway, these people who found it decided that it was too big a treasure to be owned by any one person so they would form a secret society. You'll never guess who the group was. Yeah, the Knights Templar. Well, of course they also created the masons and so on and they vowed to protect this treasure from ever being found by one person.
So they split up the treasure into thousands of small parts and spread it through the world using their society to disseminate it. This way the wealth would be able to do good and would never fall into one persons hands. Oh no, sorry, that wasn't how it went at all. That would have been how it went were they sensible. No, instead they smuggled it to america where the founding fathers and everybody else from american history that is cool (george washington, benjamin franklin and god knows who else - a bunch of people that nobody outside of america could even tell you who they are) helped to hide it from the british because clearly the british are evil and the group derived from the knights templar are clearly going to be anti british...
So, there's your background plot. Oh, and of course, the hero of the piece has the only known clue as to how to find this treasure. Because clearly if the treasure should never be owned and controlled by one person you should leave clues to its whereabouts...
The opening scene in present day
Well, clearly the kid who was in the opening scene and was given the only clue by his granfather, passed down in the family, has grown up into nicholas cage. And with the help of backing by a british guy, sean bean, has found the location mentioned in his first clue, a burried ship.
Now, as everybody knows once you have poured huge amounts of money into finding a ship burried in an ice flow, the best thing to do once you have used advanced computer techniques to locate where it has moved to by glacial drift (no indication of how they located it at all, of course) is to get out of your snowmobiles and have half a dozen of you walking across the ice with metal detectors, the kind you can probably buy from maplin for 50 quid or something. And what pained my most was that it beeped over a particular spot. So he swung it back over the spot and it beeped again.
Its a FUCKING SHIP. A ship. A big thing with loads of people on. WHy, in the name of all that makes sense in films, was there about a six inch patch of ice that set off the metal detector. And why didn't they try something like sonar to find the ship. Or, I don't know, something that didn't rely on total luck to find the ship.
Anyway, on the ship they discover the clue, an ornate pipe like thing. Now I think about it I think that first clue might hasve been the crack pipe that the writer was smoking. Anyway, after some very unscientific practices (if you have something that you need to press on an ink pad or something is the best plan of action to get a knife and take off your glove (in arctic lookign conditions) and cut your thumb so you bleed and then wipe the blood on your print before pressing that to paper to make the message?) it turns out that the next clue is on the declaration of independance. The british guy says "Ok, we'll steal it". Nicholas cage responds with something along the lines of "Oh my god! You can't possibly do that! I'd rather give up everything I hold dear than even contemplate that thought! Its anathema! Its...." *breaks down in tears at the thought of harm to the delcaration of independance* Its a slight exageration but it gets the idea across. Really.
So, after a bit of a fight, the british guy of course turning out to be truly truly evil on account of being british and not respecting the declaration of independance and, oh, make your own mind up on the way its going, the heros nearly get blown up and lose the clue but still remember the words.
And so it goes on...
So the good guy, decides, having had all the people like the FBI and the National Archives tell him he is a wakko for suggesting the declaration of independance is going to be stolen, that he is going to steal the declaration of independance because he will look after it nicely. I can only summise that shoudl Sean Bean have had his way he would have destroyed it, thus leaving the americans with no proof that they were in fact independant and so america would revert to being a british colony...
So, this guy, whose backing seems to be in history, decides to steal what is, apparently, americans most valuable possession. Well, clearly he and his ocomputer geek friend are perfect for the job. With skills and gadgets to rival james bond he gets the finger prints, passwords and everything else that he needs to access the thing. So, the geek deals with the two necessary security cameras (because of course there are only two) while the hero fo the piece does the rest. Meanwhile, the evil british man is preparing his hit squad to break in the explosive way. In the end the two groups of course meet and have a brief scuffle. The villains have of course, not being sneaky, had to deal with a whole guard to steal this thing that everybody guaranteed could not be stolen.
From this point on it actually gets better until we get to...
The magical spectacles...
So on the back of the declaration is a map. They've already used lemon juice and a hair dryer to bring out a set of information. THis information leads them to the key needed to see the rest of the map to the treasure. SO they follow the clues to the key. At a certain time the clock tower of liberty hall (or somewhere like that) will cast a shadow pointing to the next clue. What is the time? Well, on the 100 dollar bill there is a clock that has the time on it because its based on a painting done by a friend of Benjamin Franklin (or something like that). Anyway, at 2:22 they need to be at this clock tower. Never mind the fact that given the time you could work out where the shadow was with total simplicity, they have to actually be there...
So this clue leads them to the magical spectacles. Yup, you heard me, the magical spectacles. Built by Benjamin Franklin (or possibly somebody else, that was the name that seemed to be connected to most things) these glasses reveal the map on the back of the declaration. How? Well, the glasses are a bit more complicated than just single lenses. They have three lenses in front of each eye. The first clear and the next ones coloured. Just imagine those 3d glasses but with a bit more complicated engineering.
So, yeah, you look at the blank canvas on the back of the declaration and somehow, I'm entirely unclear on how, a message appeared. A fairly high resolutions message with pictures and everything. and as you flip out some of the coloured lenses a different message appears. Now, if there was a couloured pattern that resolved itself then that'd be cool. But it was a totally blank bit of canvas on the back. I have *no* idea how the hell these coloured lenses made not just one but three messages appear on the back of the declaration.
And the rest
To be fair though, I think that this is pretty much most of the bad bits of the film. The rest was quite cool. An entertaining escape from the FBI and... actually, a lot of the rest of it was just running around, to be fair. not very exciting... But there were some good lines in the film like "I'm coming with you" "no you're not" "If you weren't going to take me with you then you shouldn't have told me where you were going."
Oh, and of course most importantly the female lead was top totty. And I reckon that judging by her overdone eye makeup that she was a little bit goth. Though that might have been jsut my wishful thinking, she was a bit too blonde to be properly goth.
I think I feel better now. For those interested I might organise a repeat viewing of this film. With a minimum of 3 drinks before you are considered safe to watch the film. Heckling compulsory.
Dear god. And for *this* I missed a phone call...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-31 12:59 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-31 01:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-31 02:13 am (UTC)(See, there's a reason to go to the Templars' New Year party: you can ensure I'm properly lobotomised!)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-31 03:48 am (UTC)oh, and yeah, you british people are bad...or something. Thank you for John Cleese. we're keeping him.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-01 07:43 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-31 08:24 am (UTC)But then, that was almost three pages of utter @rse. I think that's enough for one film, don't you ?
Thanks for a very amusing review though. I wasn't going to see it but now... I'm still not going to see it. <grin>
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-31 08:47 am (UTC)Now the the combined forces of the CIA, NSA, US Marines and The President Himself (tm) may be able to barely capture one british super criminal, but two? They would be unstoppable! Bwahahahah!
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-31 09:50 am (UTC)Totty
Date: 2004-12-31 10:37 am (UTC)Or then again, they might have just not thought about it.
David
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-31 11:00 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-31 05:21 pm (UTC)It's bound to be Franklin, because he invented bifocals.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-01 12:04 pm (UTC)It was very highly entertaining :)
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-01 07:08 pm (UTC)The problem is, I read as far as "Nicolas Cage... and Sean Bean" and the rest just went blurry.
Mmm, boys.
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-01 07:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-01 07:38 pm (UTC)