Yesterday afternoon, der B and I indulged ourselves and went to see the new Jerry Bruckheimer/Nick Cage film, National Treasure. We'd agreed that it would probably be better seen on a large screen, and as usual it was nice to be right.
It's a piece of fluff, of course, with Sean Bean as a suave villian opposite Cage's ernest good guy. John Voight is nicely cast as Cage's dad, Harvey Keitel does right with the FBI role, and Diane Kruger and Justin Bartha round out the leads. There are lots of set pieces, including the obligatory car chase, the obligatory Mission: Impossible break-in, the obligatory entering-the-ancient-secret-hiding-place. And there was the obligatory Jerry Bruckheimer music, sort of like what can be heard on Iron Chef but even more so.
But it's all good fluff. Most of the film is set along the northeastern seaboard, from Washington (yep, that's the National Archives, inside and out) to Philadelphia (yep, that's Reading Terminal Market, with one of my favorite book stores in the background) to NYC (yep, there's...no, I've only walked past Trinity Church, never been in it). Will the film earn Cage another Oscar? Of course not. But it solidifies his reputation as one of his generation's acting chameleons, gracefully moving from serious films to audience pleasers, from character to very different character, sort of like a male Merle Streep or a goofier Tom Hanks.
So go, have a good time at the matinee. And it's PG, so you can take those neices and nephews, if you want.
