Tagged: review

Review: ‘Beauty and the Beast’

Review: ‘Beauty and the Beast’

The climb back to not only respectability but creativity was a long painful one for Walt Disney Studios but you could see bits and pieces of improvement throughout the 1980s. [[[The Little Mermaid]]] in 1989 was the first serious indication that the animators found their mojo. As a result, audiences were primed and ready for 1991’s Beauty and the Beast. What they didn’t anticipate was just how magical and wonderful the film would be.

Clearly, one of the crown jewels, the studio has polished their gem to a bright luster in the just-released Diamond Edition. There are a variety of formats including the combo pack which has the movie on standard DVD plus two Blu-ray discs chuck full of goodness.

First of all, you get three versions of the movie: the original theatrical release, the extended edition (containing the number “Being Human”) and the work-in-progress print which was screened in New York a year prior to release that gave everyone a hint at how special this film would be. While the animation shines in DVD, it’s glorious in Blu-ray, complete with spectacular sound. If anything, the high definition images are too clear so you actually see animation flaws here and there. Watching the film lets you lose yourself in the finely crafted story with lush visuals and lovely tunes.

The classic tale was reimagined in England under a different creative director and when the first 18 minutes of storyboards were presented, the Disney executives, including Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg, didn’t think it was quite right. They trashed six months of work and reassigned roles. At that point, it was also decided to add music and that is when the creative problems plaguing the story got solved.

Fortunately, the team of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken were fresh off The Little Mermaid and stepped in. Ashman was ill, dying before Beauty was released, but did some of his finest work. The finished results had all the Disney magic generations had come to expect and added at least one new generation to its collection of believers. The story of Belle and the Beast is dramatic, emotional, humorous and touching. There are wonderful supporting characters, memorable songs, bits of business for adults and plenty of action for all. No wonder it received a Golden Globe and was nominated for Best Picture, forcing the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to create a separate category.

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HANCOCK TIPS HIS HAT TO THE GREEN LAMA-UNBOUND!!

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  • October 7, 2010

TIPPIN’ HANCOCK’S HAT-Reviews by Tommy Hancock

Green Lama-Unbound
Written by Adam L. Garcia
Art by Mike Fyles
Published by Airship 27 Productions and Cornerstone Book Publishers
There’s a lot of discussion in the Pulp field, on this site and elsewhere, about what makes a novel or story pulp.  Let’s dispense with that right off the bat.  GREEN LAMA- UNBOUND undoubtedly meets the requirement to be considered pulp, meets it, exceeds it, runs all over it, and jumps on it again.  And that’s not just because the novel, the second volume of Green Lama from Cornerstone/Airship 27, stars a known pulp character.  No, Adam Garcia weaves in all the right elements to make this book pulp.  Heroes we could only wish really existed, over the top villains, a thrill or revelation on almost every page, and enough mysticism, fist throwin’, and other sorts of hoodoo to fill another couple of books.   This is undoubtedly a pulp book.
It is also, refreshingly so, a well put together novel.  Even though this is his first novel, Garcia has mixed all the right ingredients together to make for an interesting, engaging read and an awesome foundation for future stories.  First, the plot is a strong one.  Essentially, The Green Lama and his cohorts are pulled into a battle trying to stave off not only the possible end of the world, but the return of the most evil presence imaginable.  Yes, we are in Lovecraft territory once again, but Garcia doesn’t overplay the Elder Ones card.  He uses the obvious intense evil that these characters represent as a way to bring more out of Dumont and the cast, both good and bad guys.  The plot starts and never stops, the hook is set from word one.
Secondly, Garcia has captured the pacing necessary for a good novel.   This novel can probably be described as going at a beyond breakneck speed and it certainly does that.  Garcia, however, deftly works in slower moments, times for the cast and the reader to breathe without ever really stopping the action.  Someone is always learning something new, a new trap is being laid, or someone is plotting against someone else.   The action, both true pulp action and just general movement of the story and characters is handled extremely well throughout the book.
Lastly, Garcia presents a cast of characters that offer any reader everything they could want.  Although The Green Lama is the title character and the story revolves completely around him and his destiny, the supporting cast from Tsarong to Caraway and Jean and even to the villains are rich, full of life and expression, and in no way cardboard cutouts, as so many people seem to believe pulp supporting characters were and should be.
Having said that, if this book has any weakness, it is in some of the characterizations.  Garcia makes an obvious effort to give each and every character down to the smallest one personality and to make them more human.  Although that works for the most part, there are some instances where it seems he tries too hard to make the point that these people are human.  This is most glaring at times in the portrayal of the Lama himself, but also in a couple of other spots.  In trying to bring out the more realistic qualities, Garcia sometimes makes the mistake of making caricatures of his cast, not characters of them.  But again, this is not the rule in this novel, but the exception.
The art of Mike Fyles deserves review as well.  It deserves review because it is simply stunning.  The images Fyles casts of the Lama and others is almost photorealistic in one way, but more than that, it evokes every emotion within the novel.  Fear is present in every line, regret and destiny fill each shadow, and passion and determination etch each face.  Fyles indeed captures in image what Garcia expresses in words.
GREEN LAMA-UNBOUND is a fantastic read and the right way to make sure people buy the next two books that Garcia has already announced are in the future.
Four out of Five Tips of Hancock’s Hat (usually reserved for heads of state, arresting officers, and little old ladies, which is pretty darn good.)
NYCC/NYAF After-Concerts: Tales of HYDE, K.A.Z., the Beauty and their ‘Beast’

NYCC/NYAF After-Concerts: Tales of HYDE, K.A.Z., the Beauty and their ‘Beast’

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  • October 7, 2010

Japan’s nicest bad boys are, as one of their new album cuts says, causing “Trouble,” out on their first world tour, appearing to frenzied fans. And they’re stopping at NYC’s Roseland Ballroom for only the second time in their 6-year history of music-making together on Saturday, October 9th to rock our world.

The concert is part of a weekend here that begins with their
appearance at NYAF on Friday 10/8 at 4:30 p.m. Long associated with the genre,
Hyde, via L’Arc and solo, can be heard on the opening themes to popular animes such as Fullmetal
Alchemist (second season’s opening, “Ready, Steady, Go!”), Moribito (“Shine”), and Blood+ (second season’s opening,
“Season’s Call”).

L-Arc~en~Ciel’s HYDE and Oblivion Dust’s K.A.Z. are back as Vamps, with their second full album together, Beast. The album is more of what the guys of this Japanese supergroup are famous for over their decade of music making… from the
delicious crunch of the darkest cuts from Hyde’s 2006 solo album (his first
full-collaboration album with K.A.Z., who was co-producer on HYDE’s 666 in 2004), Faith,
such as “Jesus Christ” and “Countdown,” with the trebly, joy-filled,
optimism of “Season’s Call,” and pure emotions of “Evergreen” on new
tracks like “Devil Side,” “Angel Trip,” and “Get Up”. They are driven by
K.A.Z.’s guitar that is very much in the world of U2’s The Edge, with a
rhythm section that is at once lyrical and full of quirky cross-rhythms
that keep
things interesting, all very tight and energetic. And above it all soars
and
snarls, with promises worthy of a vampy vampire that True Blood’s Lafayette might describe as “sex on a stick,” is
Hyde’s unmistakable voice that just gets better with age – he’s
40-something and is a tattooed, leather-clad, pouty Peter Pan, in perfect
shape, lately sporting blond hair that is at once striking and strange. Darkly
fey. K.A.Z. is all spikey hair, sunglasses, and guitar hero.

The chemistry of
this collaboration is totally apparent and fun to see and hear on the tracks
and production and live-concert videos. This album may not be my favourite of
Hyde’s work to date (that’s still Faith
and L’Arc cuts such as “Ready, Steady, Go!” and “Shine”). Lyrically, it’s not
up to the power and beauty of past work and the English can be rather raw,
though some of the playful double-entendres
do tempt and tease as they ought. Nonetheless, it is a fun album, a dancin’,
jammin’, party album, worth having in a fan’s collection and a good entry piece
for those new to the HYDE-K.A.Z. multi-verse. I anticipate an electric atmosphere
for the show with NY audiences who rarely get to hear their fav J-Rockers live,
stoked and hungry and rarin’ to go!

I’ll return with a review of
the show and backstage goings-on sometime after the event. Stay tuned!

Review: ‘Atlantis the Lost Continent’

Back in the dim pre-cable days, the independent stations in New York would run movies at all hours of the day. Those of us addicted to television were exposed to movies both great and not-so-great with amazing regularity and repetitiveness. One of those pleasures was in spotting performers we knew from other roles, at different times in their careers. For me, one of those discoveries was Edward Platt, who I only knew as the Chief of CONTROL on [[[Get Smart]]]. But there he was, in priestly robes, in a tale of lost Atlantis. It was years before I remembered its name,[[[ Atlantis the Lost Continent]]]and it was even some time after that before I realized it was from director George Pal. (more…)

Video Game Review: “Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions”

Video Game Review: “Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions”

I’ll admit it: I’m a sucker for[[[Spider-Man]]] video games. Good, bad; I’ve played them all (own them all too).  So when they announced Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions where you’d be able to play as four different Spider-Men across four different dimensions, I was sold.  Taking Amazing, 2099, Noir and Ultimate (in the symbiote suit) and having them all working toward a common goal (save their universes, and all the other ones) is pretty daunting…what makes it more so is making each version unique and fun.  After some stellar games in the past years (the ones based on the first two movies) and some not so stellar ones (the one based on the third movie), it’s high time ol’ web-head got a title befitting his comic roots…all of them.

It seems Mysterio has found a mystical tablet that grants him unimaginable power…and of course Spidey has to show up in the nick of time and thwart his schemes…sort of.  In the fracas, he accidentally shatters the tablet, sending pieces of it across dimensions.  With the help of Madame Web and the other versions of Spider-Man, he must regain control of the fragments before they fall into the wrong hands…and rips the universe apart in the process.  There’s plenty of fan service throughout, but is that enough to make a good game?

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SKY CAPTAIN-REVIEWED BY DERRICK FERGUSON AT THE LONG MATINEE!

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  • October 2, 2010

THE LONG MATINEE- Movie Reviews by Derrick Ferguson

SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW

2004
Paramount

Produced by Jon Avnet
Written And Directed by Kerry Conran

In doing my research prior to writing this review I discovered that Kerry Conran originally wanted to do this movie with unknown actors and break it up into ‘chapters’ and present it as if it were a lost serial from the 1930’s that had recently been discovered. I would really have liked to see that version of SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW since I think he could have pulled it off. As anybody who’s read my work knows, I’m a full out geek when it comes to the blood and thunder pulps of the 1930’s and 1940’s and Saturday morning serials and 90% of my work is written in the tradition of the pulps. As I watched SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW I realized that I had a spiritual brother in Kerry Conran. I don’t often recommend that people see a movie just for the way it looks but SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW is one of those movies. It’s an out-of-body experience that truly takes you into another world and despite what I think are some flaws that prevent it from being quite as good as such great pulp inspired films such as The Indiana Jones movies “The Rocketeer” “The Phantom” and “Buckaroo Banzai” it’s an astounding adventure movie that proves what I’ve been saying for years: pulp action adventure is alive and well and if presented in the right way, people will eat it up.

The look of the movie is achieved through the means of almost total CGI. Except for the actors, their costumes and some of the sets, nearly everything else is a digital creation and the results are simply astounding in evoking a 1939 that only existed in the pages of pulp magazines and serials and could only be realized now. There’s a certain irony in the fact that the best way to visualize a world of the past is by means of a futuristic technology but it works. Boy, does it ever work.

SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW takes place in an alternate Earth where the Second World War has obviously never happened. We can tell that right from the beautiful opening sequence where The Hindenburg III docks at The Empire State Building. That huge tower on the top was designed exactly for that purpose in our reality but after it was built it was discovered that the high winds would make dirigibles move around too much and make it impossible for passengers to disembark. But in this world they’ve obviously overcome that problem. Aboard The Hindenburg is Dr. Vargas (Julian Curry) who is on the run from sinister forces who have been kidnapping the world’s leading scientists and he’s next on the list.

He’s come to New York to warn his colleague, Dr. Jennings (Trevor Baxter) who in turn contacts the crack reporter of The New York Chronicle, the wonderfully named Polly Perkins (Gwyneth Paltrow) and informs her that he was once a member of a mysterious group known as Unit 11 who worked for a Doctor Totenkopf (Sir Laurence Oliver in archival footage) who worked on projects that were “too horrible to speak of” It’s during their meeting that New York is attacked by an army of giant flying robots that proceed to steal the city’s generators. There’s only one chance for the city to survive and the call goes out for Joe Sullivan aka Sky Captain (Jude Law) to come and save the day in his customized, pimped-out P-40 Warhawk which he does in a breathtaking sequence that sets the tone for the rest of the movie.

Turns out that Sky Captain is the only hope to find out where these giant robots are coming from and why they’re attacking cities all over the entire world for their generators. Sky Captain is ably backed up by his own private army and his faithful sidekick, Dex (Giovanni Ribisi) who judging from his speech patterns and technological genius must be an ancestor of Star Trek’s Mr. Spock. Polly insists on going along the adventure and it turns out that she and Sky Captain had a wild romance in the past that resulted in her sabotaging his beloved plane.   That led to him being held in a prison for six months so there’s a certain amount of friction there that leads to some entertaining banter between the two as they go off on a world-wide quest for Tontenkopf’s secret base to stop his mad schemes. They’re followed by The Mysterious Woman (Bai Ling) who is Totenkopf’s enforcer and seeks to stop them. Along the way Sky Captain and Polly get the help of Franky (Angelina Jolie) the eye patch wearing commander of a fleet of aerial aircraft carriers and they assault Dr. Totenkopf’s island fortress in a last ditch effort to save the world.

SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW is a great movie for those of us who love the pulps and those of us who have no idea of what the pulps were and want to know. Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow and Angelina Jolie do an absolutely bang-up job in their roles and considering they were working on sets where they had to imagine what they were seeing, they do a great job. I really liked Angelina Jolie’s work in this movie and I bet if you ask her she’d admit that she’s a fan of Jim Steranko’s “Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.” since her role is practically a 1930’s female version of that character. There’s a fantastic scene where she and her squadron of ace pilots dive into the ocean and we see that their planes can also become submarine fighters that had me jumping up and hollaring like a maniac. And I won’t even tell you the scene that happens after that when she has to take out a giant robotic crab monster protecting Totenkopf’s island.

But SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW does have some major flaws. First is that even though Sky Captain is the hero he never has a real enemy to face off with. Dr. Totenkopf is played by Sir Laurence Oliver who died before the movie was made and so only appears either in footage that has been CGI’ed. And The Mysterious Woman looks as if she might be a formidable enemy but she and Sky Captain never have a real emotional or physical conflict. Near the end of the movie, The Mysterious Woman and Sky Captain square off in a battle that looks as if we’re going to get some real ass-kicking action but it doesn’t happen. It’s resolved in a manner that had me saying; “That’s IT?!”

Another thing that had me puzzling over is that early in the movie it’s said that the nations of the world have to rely on Sky Captain and his private army to find Totenkopf since their armies are engaged in other conflicts. Well, if in this world there’s no World War II then what conflict is going on that would prevent the world powers from sending their armies after Totenkopf.  And I also didn’t like how near the end where Sky Captain and Polly have been busting their asses to save Dex for nearly 30 minutes of the movie’s running time Dex shows up to save them and he explains how he escaped in an unconvincing offhanded manner.

And the movie doesn’t have the headlong adrenaline rush of the Indiana Jones movies or “The Rocketeer” or “The Phantom”. It’s a good movie, don’t get me wrong…but it’s obvious that the director is more in love with getting the look and feel of the movie right more than the action elements. But you just can’t beat the scene in New York with Sky Captain fighting the robots and that simply incredible underwater scene with the amphibious planes. Stuff like that is what a pulp fan like me lives for and I certainly got it. But there’s a curious lack of headlong action that doesn’t carry you along in a rush that I attribute to the director. Kerry Conran is good, yeah, but he’s not a major action direction who could have torn up the screen with material like this.

The performances in the movie are also worth mentioning. SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW was part of the Jude Law Film Festival of 2004 where it seemed as if every other movie that hit the screens that year starred Jude Law. He’s really good in this one as he plays it absolutely straight. His daredevil pilot Joe Sullivan would have been right at home in a Howard Hawkes movie like “Only Angels Have Wings” and I loved how during the underwater fight scene Angelina Jolie was grinning like a kid on Christmas while wearing a helmet I’m positive was inspired by Wally Wood.

So should you see SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW? Without a doubt. It’s an excellent movie simply on a technical level in that it brings to life a world that I love with my whole heart and I try to recreate in my work. I would advise you to see The Indiana Jones movies or “The Rocketeer” or “The Phantom” if you want to know what the action and energy of the pulps and Saturday Morning serials felt like but see SKY CAPTAIN AND THE WORLD OF TOMORROW if you want to know what the pulps and Saturday morning serials looked like.

106 minutes
Rated PG

Review: ‘Superman/Batman: Apocalypse’

Review: ‘Superman/Batman: Apocalypse’

While the various animated series featuring the DC Universe heroes have had a loose connectivity, the feature films from Warner Premiere have been fiercely independent with variations in look, vocal cast and attitude. That is, until now. In Superman/Batman: Apocalypse, out today from Warner Home Entertainment, we have the first animated feature to immediately pick up on the events of a previous offering, in this case Superman/Batman: Public Enemies. Of course, it makes sense since they both are drawn from the Superman/Batman ongoing series and comprise the title’s first two story arcs.

The arc, from Jeph Loeb and the late Michael Turner, introduced Supergirl to New Earth. In [[[Public Enemies]]], President Luthor tried to blame a large kryptonite asteroid en route to Earth on Superman. After the World’s Finest team destroyed the threat and exposed Luthor’s criminal activity, all seemed safe. As the new feature opens, a voiceover recaps those events and sets up a chunk of the shattered rock splashing into Gotham Bay. As [[[Batman]]] investigates, he encounters a naked, confused teen girl who is speaking gibberish. Demonstrating super-powers, she is confused and causing havoc, requiring intervention from the Man of Steel, who comes to realize this is his cousin Kara Zor-El.

The personality differences between the Dark Knight and the Metropolis Marvel have never been better portrayed in a story, which was adapted for the film by Tab Murphy. Batman’s suspicious and cautious while Superman is delighted to find a blood relative after all these years of emotional isolation. How they react to her arrival informs their actions for the remainder of the story. Also, Murphy does a nice job of delineating a teen who has lost her parents and home, finding herself a stranger in a very strange land. She’s young and innocent, striving to find an identity and rebelling when the adults try to dictate her future without consulting her.

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Review: The Simon and Kirby Superheroes

Review: The Simon and Kirby Superheroes

Pound for pound, you’re unlikely to find a better
superhero collection than Titan Books’ The Simon and Kirby Superheroes
. It weighs in at 4.2 pounds and, at
Amazon.com’s $32.97, that means you are paying fifty cents an ounce for the
stuff that made Joe Simon and Jack Kirby legends.

You might not have heard of some of these characters –
Stuntman, Fighting American, Vagabond Prince, Captain 3-D (in 2-D, but now in
color),[[[Private Strong]]] (the Shield #2), and [[[The Fly]]]. Over the decades many have
been reprinted; this book also includes a number of stories that had never been
published. All are gems. Every one of them. All 480 pages of them.

Of course, Simon and Kirby are better known for their
Marvel and DC creations: [[[Boy Commandos]]], [[[The Guardian]]] and [[[the Newsboy Legion]]],and – most prominently – [[[Captain America]]]. All of these stories have been collected in hardcover in recent years, along with their work on DC’s Sandman
series. OK, for the nit-pickers in the audience, the Boy Commandos volume ships from DC at the end of November.

As fond as I am of these creations – and Captain America
is as iconic a costumed hero as they come – I have always been more
enthusiastic about the characters represented in this mammoth tome. The action leaps off the page, the stories
border on the outrageous and the concepts are pure unbridled fun. Their own
company published some, others were published by Archie Comics or Harvey
Comics. I gather their editors simply gave them more latitude; certainly, the
corporate structures were obviously more willing to bend to Simon and Kirby’s
strengths than the uptights at Marvel (Timely) and DC.

In other words, when it comes to Simon and Kirby
superheroes, this is the real stuff.

Kudos to editor Steve Saffel, who has spent at least four
years working on this series of books along with Joe Simon (age 97) and his son
Jim. It’s the second volume of the Simon and Kirby Library, but this book is
wisely unnumbered. It started with The Best of Simon and Kirby
, an overview that included reprints of DC and
Marvel stories; it will continue with separate volumes devoted, respectively,
to their crime, horror and romance comics. For the uninformed, Simon and Kirby invented the romance comics genre.

Neil Gaiman contributed the introductory essay, and it
comes off as a labor of love. I can relate to that. Joe Simon and Jack Kirby
gave the American comic book genre its heart and its soul. They brought emotion
and energy to the four-color page, and [[[ The
Simon and Kirby Superheroes]]] is an educational experience illuminating the
power of the comic book story in its most formative days.

If you’re reading this review, you should be reading The Simon
and Kirby Superheroes. You need to.

Photo
IDs: top – Simon, Kirby; bottom – Saffel, Book

Video Game Review: “Mafia II”

Video Game Review: “Mafia II”

To say that, as people, we’re not fascinated by the underworld lifestyle is a misnomer.  While not all of us revel in the seedier side of the “business” world, we’re always intrigued at how the other side lives.  Be it through books, movies, television shows or yes, even video games, the life of a criminal and their dark undertakings is one that captures the imagination, and if we were less discriminating people, it would be a world we might engage in ourselves — if there were no consequences.  Thankfully, that’s the kind of safety video games offer, and as such, 2K Game’s Mafia II is one such look into this world…albeit a world gone by as the early days of the Cosa Nostra (or at least, a version of it) is delved into.  Did their gameplay make us an offer we couldn’t refuse?  Hit the jump for the full review.

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NEW MOVIE REVIEW AT THE LONG MATINEE!!!-National Treasure!

NEW MOVIE REVIEW AT THE LONG MATINEE!!!-National Treasure!

  • News
  • September 26, 2010

THE LONG MATINEE – Movie Reviews by Derrick Ferguson

NATIONAL TREASURE                         

2004                                       
Walt Disney Pictures

Directed by Jon Turtletaub
Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer
Written by Jim Kouf, Oren Aviv & Charles Segar (story)
Jim Kouf, Cormac Wibberley & Marianne Wibberley (screenplay)
I had heard a lot about NATIONAL TREASURE before I saw it.  Friends of mine told me to see it because it reminded them of something that I would write.  Roger Ebert just about called it an out-and-out rip off of “The DaVinci Code”.  Other people said it was boring, stupid, trite, a rip-off of this or that movie or character, mostly Indiana Jones or Clive Cussler’s Dirk Pitt
I saw it for myself and you know what was the most surprising thing to me about the movie was?  That this was a Jerry Bruckheimer/Nicolas Cage collaboration that didn’t have any of the qualities that were evident in their other films together such as “Con Air” or “The Rock”.    This is an action movie, yes.  But when you compare it to what we call action movies today, it’s practically a throwback.  There is only one explosion, one car chase, one shootout, one death and even that is due to the poor dumb bastard who gets killed making a wrong step.  NATIONAL TREASURE is a movie that plays as if Cage and Bruckheimer had deliberately sat down and said: “let’s do an action movie that’s totally different from what we’ve done before.” and in doing so, they’ve given today’s audience what amounts to an updated version of my beloved pulp adventure serials from the 1930’s/1940’s.
Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicholas Cage) has spent his entire life looking for a treasure that has passed from Emperors to Kings to Pharaohs and finally to The Founding Fathers of The American Government.  The treasure has grown to such enormous wealth that supposedly it’s “too large for any one man or nation to own” and The Knights Templars protected it in Europe for hundreds of years until it was moved to America along with The Knights Templar who became The Freemasons.  The Freemasons counted among their members such notable Founding Fathers such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Paul Revere and Benjamin Franklin who left clues scattered among the various works they left behind as to where this fabulously immense treasure could be found.
 Gates has discovered that the map to where the National Treasure is located is on the back of The Declaration of Independence.  What is unfortunate is that he can get nobody to believe him, especially The FBI or Dr. Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger), who is a curator at The National Archives.  When Gates tells her about the invisible map that is on the back of The Declaration of Independence and has been there for hundreds of years undetected she asks him quite seriously: “Who wrote it there?  Bigfoot?”
Gates doesn’t have much time to try and change the minds of the FBI or Dr. Chase since his former partner Ian Howe has double-crossed him and intends to steal The Declaration and find the treasure.  Gates decides that the only thing to do is steal The Declaration of Independence himself, along with his brilliant tech-savvy sidekick Riley Poole and find the treasure before Ian does. 
NATIONAL TREASURE has a lot going for it in the way it handles the characters and the motivations behind what they’re doing.  Gates is not a treasure seeker in the conventional sense and indeed, he keeps telling people that he’s a ‘treasure protector’.  He’s looking for the National Treasure to vindicate his family name since The Gates Family are looked upon as crackpots by the historical/archeological community for believing that the treasure is real.   And he’s got a diverse and interesting background as shown by a scene where the FBI Agent assigned to catch Gates (played by Harvey Keitel) reads Gates’ file.  Gates has degrees in a whole bunch of diverse fields, which leads Keitel to muse; “I wonder just what this guy wanted to be when he grew up”.
And the relationship between Gates and his rival Ian is interesting and well handled as well.  For once, the bad guy in a movie isn’t a bloodthirsty maniac out to kill everybody in his way.  In fact, Ian tries to go out of his way not to kill anybody because as he sensibly explains to one of his gun happy henchmen: “The authorities tend to want to find out why dead bodies have bullets in them and who put them there” As a matter of fact, NATIONAL TREASURE is one of the few action/adventure movies I’ve seen recently where the bad guy actually has good reasons for why he doesn’t kill the hero when he has a chance to, especially in a scene near the end where Ian leaves Gates and his sidekicks alive in a secret tomb underneath New York’s Wall Street when he certainly would have reason not to.  It surprised me and that’s not easy for movies nowadays to do.
I liked a lot of the performances here.  Nicholas Cage looks more at home playing Benjamin Franklin Gates than any of the other characters in his other action movies he’s done with Bruckheimer and maybe that’s because Gates isn’t an Indiana Jones, despite what you may have read or heard.  Gates isn’t a super martial artist or expert gunman or daredevil adventurer.  He’s an historian searching for vindication of his family’s dream and he plays it that way.  When he’s confronted with bad guys brandishing automatic weapons he runs like his ass is on fire and he only stops to fight when he has no other way out.  What makes him dangerous is his brainpower: he sees connections and can make them faster than anybody else and he’s smart enough to know that about himself and use it to his advantage.
Sean Bean is absolutely great as Cage’s rival in the race for the treasure and you get the sense that a lot of the reasons why he doesn’t kill Gates is that he really admires and respects Gates’ knowledge and resourcefulness.  Jon Voigt has a lot more to do here as Patrick Henry Gates, the father of Cage’s character than he had to do as Lara Croft’s father in “Tomb Raider”.  Justin Bartha as Riley Poole is one of the best sidekicks I’ve seen in recent moves and he has a wonderful scene where he proves just how much that a sidekick can enhance the hero’s character.
The main selling point for me with NATIONAL TREASURE, that it isn’t an Indiana Jones type of cliffhanging-thrill a minute-claw your date’s arm-type of movie.  It’s more in the nature of a scavenger hunt and the fun comes from seeing Cage’s character and his sidekicks put together the clues and piece them together.  Not that to say that there aren’t thrills aplenty: this is an exciting movie with fights, captures, chases and plot twists.  It’s just that it isn’t packed with explosions, car chases and deaths every five minutes 
Having said all that let me say that I recommend NATIONAL TREASURE wholeheartedly.  I had an excellent time with the story and characters and I don’t even think you’ll miss the usual mayhem that we expect from a Bruckheimer/Cage action movie.  Are there holes in the plot holes and flaws?  Sure there are.  Cage and his crew find a ship that has supposedly been buried in the Arctic ice for hundreds of years far too easily.  And would gunpowder burn after being buried under the ice for that long a time?  And there’s another scene later on where Cage and his crew just happen be standing at the tower where The Liberty Bell is kept so that the shadow of the sun will be cast at just the right moment at just that right moment so they can find another clue to the treasure.  But by that time I had been so captivated by the performances and the sheer audacity of the story’s premise I was just watching and saying to the movie; “what the hell, let’s go.”  And I suppose that’s the best way I can tell you to take your viewing of NATIONAL TREASURE: sit back in your seat with your soda, popcorn, candy and say: “what the hell, let’s go.” Movie studios don’t make Saturday Morning Serials anymore but every so often they do make movies like NATIONAL TREASURE to remind us that once upon a time they did.

Rated: PG

131 Minutes

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