Monday, December 27, 2004
National Treasure
I'd rate this 4/10. The problem is, I went in with expectations, since somebody from Julie's workplace had said it was particularly good, and Orson Scott Card had praised it (explaining why its box-office performance was "defying" critic's lukewarm reviews). A key quote from Card's review:
If I hadn't been prompted by this, I probably would have enjoyed the movie more; as it was, National Treasure felt to me like a Movie-of-the-Week done with an A-list cast (Nicolas Cage! John Voight!) and an infinite budget. But it's a Jerry Bruckheimer film, so it neither requires, nor rewards, any more intelligence than the average Jerry Bruckheimer film.
National Treasure is not only smart, but it thinks we're smart. It is made with the assumption that we can follow a storyline that actually requires us to think and remember and care about what's good and decent.
If I hadn't been prompted by this, I probably would have enjoyed the movie more; as it was, National Treasure felt to me like a Movie-of-the-Week done with an A-list cast (Nicolas Cage! John Voight!) and an infinite budget. But it's a Jerry Bruckheimer film, so it neither requires, nor rewards, any more intelligence than the average Jerry Bruckheimer film.
