 | MOVIE #1,165 • 🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿🍿 • 09.28.23 Starting in 2020, I decided to watch & review the entire Nicolas Cage filmography in alphabetical order. This is 𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔜𝔢𝔞𝔯 𝔬𝔣 ℭ𝔞𝔤𝔢 – Chapter 50. Holy shit, it’s the 50th entry in this Nicolas Cage filmography series. Time for a reboot, methinks. Part of me wants to go back and edit the 10 or so reviews that came before this so they’re in the traditional YEAR OF CAGE plot recap, video-heavy style, but I just know I’ll never get around to it. Sigh. Anyway, let’s get into it: Cage Goes Disney Franchise? Sure, why not. He’s tackled just about everything else you can do IN THE MOVIES up to this point. This was a fairly massive hit — spawning a sequel which I’ll tackle after a month-long pause for October programming — but I had never seen it before. |
But a skeptical, bad wig wearing Jon Voight (Cage’s dad) shows up to break up the party. Plummer makes his grandson an honorary mason and we get a nice crosscut into the present day/opening credits…
The first clue is simply “Charlotte” so, naturally, it’s taken Cage 30 years to figure out that Charlotte is the name of a shipwrecked boat that is in Antarctica for some reason. This sets up the entire gimmick of the film: one clue leads to another clue leads to another clue, and so on. In almost every instance, we get to see them work out the riddle in real time and it’s a bit tedious, isn’t it? Here’s them figuring out the first clue…
Cage is working with a highly sus guy played by Sean Bean who’s just after the treasure and the money it will bring. When they figure out that what they think is the treasure map is encoded on the Declaration of Independence, Bean decides they have to steal it. The ethical and good Cage thinks otherwise and this leads to the first action set-piece: Bean trying to blow up Cage and his lackey Riley (played by Justin Bartha) in this boat stuck out in the arctic…
But they escape because of course they do.
The only way to protect the Declaration is to steal it himself before Bean can, Cage deduces. Riley tells him why this is impossible and then Cage quickly retorts with a surefire plan he just happened to come up with on the spot, all through some very 2004 editing…
I appreciated how quickly they got right into the scheme of this heist. I knew that this movie involved stealing the Declaration of Independence, but I assumed that would be the climax and not the conclusion of Act 1.
It's go-time and both factions show up at the National Archives at the same time. Bean’s crew is there with heavy artillery and explosives. In a slightly less subtle move, Cage’s plan involves him sneaking into the gala in a janitor's outfit and then unleashing a tuxedo and his idea of schmoozing…
This is a more devilish Cage than a crazy Cage obviously and it works. He flirts with one of the top brass of the Archives, Abigail (played by Diane Kruger, the female lead in Inglorious Bastards) and he steals her finger prints off a champagne glass. He’s able to get to the Dec first but he runs into Team Bean on the way out…
Cage manages to evade their crew, but he gets caught by Abigail on the way out and immediately gives up the document. Then she promptly gets kidnapped by Bean and a guilt-stricken Cage goes after her. They have a pretty crazy car chase on the streets of DC and when they save her it's revealed that he switched out the document with a souvenir from the gift shop…
Then we meet Harvey Keital’s character, lead FBI detective on the case. This is a pretty minimal role for him but he’s fine…
Next, the three amigos (Cage, Riley and Abigail, who has quickly gone from captive to co-conspirator) go visit Jon Voight (sans wig now) and they start to juice up the Dec with some lemons to find the hidden map, as one does…
After they're done juicing the hell out of the Dec, they hit it with some hair dryers per Jon Voight’s suggestion, but they don't find a map. It contains a code, a cypher, that needs to be used in connection with some letters that are in Voight’s possession. But he informs them that he’s donated those historic documents to the Franklin Institute in Philly. So that's where they head.
They bribe a little school kid on a class trip to transcribe the letters under glass so they can figure out the next piece of the puzzle. This then leads them to the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall, and they sneak up to the steeple WAY too easily and Cage finds the next clue, which is a pair of 3D ass steampunk spectacles hidden in a brick. They pull out the damn Dec right inside the building and Cage puts on the magic glasses to reveal a hidden riddle on the the paper.
But Bean Team is hot on their trails again, so they split up. Cage with the page and the babe with the shade (actually it’s vice versa, but that rhyme is too good). The bad guys chase them through all the cool landmarks of Philly and it's actually pretty great seeing this shot on location. Outside of City Hall, Bean gets the screed because some idiot on a bike isn’t watching where he’s going…
Meanwhile Agent Keitel catches Cage and slaps some handcuffs on him. Bean calls up the FBI to chat with Cage and sets up a meeting on an aircraft carrier in New York City because why not? Feels like the whole point of this movie is just to film cool locations at this point.
Cage jumps off the damn ship where Bean’s boy is waiting with scuba gear and a damn water jet pack! …
While Cage was tied up with the FBI, Abigail and Riley made a deal with Bean but it gets fudged up when they kidnap his dad Jon Voigt. The whole gang ends up at a church on Wall Street and Cage plays with the magic glasses again to reveal what has to be the final final final clue, right ? And they do their whole “figuring it out in real time” bit yet again…
They find a secret tunnel/hole and Cage kisses the girl. Will the treasure be here??? I'm not sure but it's clear Jon Voight doesn't want to be there…
And you know something? It turns out he was right!…
So the whole secret tunnel to hell or wherever starts collapsing and it's a pretty cool scene. Very Indiana Jonesy. Jon Voight gives Bean a fake clue and sends them off to Boston, ostensibly leaving Cage and the gang for dead stranded in this collapsing pit. But then Cage finds the REAL treasure room afte all, but… it's empty. Father and son share a tender moment…
But an ornate pipe they found all the way back on the boat at the beginning reveals the REALLY REAL treasure room and I'll be honest none of this crap looks too good to me…
Cage then ignites a fire trail that reveals the extent of this massive treasure trove…
Agent Keitel is revealed to be a Mason and he chats with Cage about what to do with the treasure and he gives up Bean’s Boston location because that is a historic American city that they haven’t seen yet and, as they say, "somebody has to go to jail for this nonesense"…
In the happy ending postscript, our three heroes gloat and riff about how they are rich now and then Riley drives his Ferrari on Cage’s lawn for some reason…
And the movie ends with Cage being gifted a map by his new Abigail, his new gf. It’s very cute…
I thought this was overall enjoyable for what it is (a PG family movie, albeit one with a surprising amount of bullets). I doubt I’ll ever return to the series after these reviews, but it’s a fun flick shot in some great locations you rarely get to see in a movie like this.
CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ MOVIE #1,165 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,167 ⫸
⫷ MOVIE #1,165 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,167 ⫸
National Treasure is a 2004 American action-adventure heist film released by Walt Disney Pictures. It was written by Jim Kouf and the Wibberleys, produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and directed by Jon Turteltaub. It is the first film in the National Treasure franchise and stars Nicolas Cage in the lead role, Harvey Keitel, Jon Voight, Diane Kruger, Sean Bean, Justin Bartha and Christopher Plummer. In the film, Benjamin Franklin Gates, a historian, along with computer expert Riley Poole and archivist Abigail Chase, search for a massive lost Freemason treasure, to which a map is hidden on the back of the Declaration of Independence. It was released on November 19, 2004.
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