Treasure hunting never gets old. Just ask George Lucas, who released the Indiana Jones trilogy on DVD last year, or Jerry Bruckheimer, who was responsible for Pirates of the Caribbean and, now, National Treasure. Indiana Jones is the penultimate adventurer, and if you ask anyone in Generations X, Y or Z to name a treasure hunter, his is the name most likely to come up.
With Pirates of the Caribbean, the ?treasure? was quite literal, although the movie?s charm relied as much on the original swashbuckling yarn as it did the high-seas adventuring. National Treasure, meanwhile, which releases on DVD Tuesday, tries to capture the adventuresome spirit of both franchises by melding aspects of each into its modern-day storyline. The result is a mixed bag, a sexy Prada veneer that protects a grandma-worthy amount of lint-coated Altoids. But if you can ignore the lint, forgive the forced love story and the sappy family-saving subplot, National Treasure is a good adventure and worth the three-hour view.
The movie itself is only two hours, three-fourths of which is spent following Nicolas Cage as he tries to decipher an invisible map on the back of the Declaration of Independence. The film is unique in that the majority of its adventure isn?t spent searching for gold, but for the various pieces of the map that lead to the treasure. This facet isn?t something you realize while watching the film, and that?s the sign of an entertaining flick. Instead, what you realize during the film is that the plot often tries to weave too much love or family reconciliation into a scene that desperately wants to focus on action instead. The film is still entertaining, but for two hours the imbalance of ?I want to accomplish everything in this scene? can get a bit overwhelming.
The remaining hour of the National Treasure DVD is the bonus features, which generally feels more well-planned and deliberate than the plot itself. Like the treasure map in the film, the DVD bonuses in National Treasure are laid out like a riddle. The first segments, comprised of an alternate ending (the current one is better), deleted scenes (there?s a reason they were deleted) and an on-the-set featurette are passable, but by and large they?ll leave you feeling as though you?ve hit a dead end. Until you realize that the end of each segment reveals clues that, once all the segments have been viewed, can be pieced together to ?unlock? the real meat of the bonus features.
Two segments of these unlockable features really make the bonus section, and oddly enough, both are documentaries of sorts. The first is a featurette called ?The Knights Templar? that discusses the history of the stonemason sect and provides the real-life context for the treasure-in-America plot of National Treasure. History buffs might find the piece a bit shallow, but those of us who know very little about the Knights Templar are bound to learn something and, better yet, find a new appreciation for the plot in this film.
The second segment, ?Treasure Hunters Revealed,? includes brief interviews with two professional treasure hunters and one recreational. On the one hand, it?s fascinating to learn more about the people who actually make a living searching for hidden or long-lost treasures, and to see them on location is just flat-out cool. On the other hand, hearing how much research goes into the hunt (about 90 percent of the entire process involves research) deflates the adventure balloon of National Treasure and its treasure-hunting predecessors. Sure, we all knew Indiana Jones was a smart history professor and that Capt. Jack Sparrow knew how to find the treasure, but this featurette?s reality check spoils some of the fun.
For a new franchise, National Treasure is a valiant first effort, but it?s not an immediate classic a la Pirates of the Caribbean or Indiana Jones. Pirates had romance and adventure. Indiana Jones had romance, social struggles, a family dynamic and adventure, but it introduced those elements during the course of three films. National Treasure has all those same elements, but crammed into a fast-paced two-hour window. That?s simply too much for a single film. Adventure is where it?s at, and adventure is what National Treasure, at its heart, provides. If you can go into this DVD expecting solid entertainment and not a masterpiece, National Treasure will not let you down.
— Jonas Allen
