Walt Disney Home Video presents

National Treasure: Two-Disc Collector's Edition (2005)

"I'm going to steal the Declaration of Independence."- Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicholas Cage)

Stars: Nicolas Cage
Other Stars: Sean Bean, Diane Kruger, Justin Bartha, Jon Voight, Harvey Keitel, David Dayan Fisher, Stewart Finlay-McLennan, Oleg Taktarov, Stephen A. Pope, Christopher Plummer, Hunter Gomez
Director: Jon Turteltaub

MPAA Rating: PG for action violence and some scary images
Run Time: 02h:10m:56s
Release Date: 2007-12-18
Genre: adventure

Style Grade	Substance Grade	Image Transfer Grade	Audio Transfer Grade	Extras Grade
A-	A-	B+	A-	B-

 

DVD Review

The film review is by Rich Rosell.

I used to get in arguments with my brother about those big-budget action films (your Armageddon/Die Hard/Con Air kind of flicks), the type where you need to disengage your logical mind in order to kick back and kill two hours being entertained.

His borderline highbrow argument was why waste two hours on something that is farfetched or hokey; my comeback was that these films provide the perfect level of escapism, and that I'm not expecting 100% logic, but I do want it to be big, noisy, and fun. Sure, I can appreciate the visual majesty of Akira Kurosawa, or the dark beauty of Carol Reed when I need to, but there is an endlessly deep hole in my moviegoing heart that only be filled by those big summer blockbusters.

The Jerry Bruckheimer-produced National Treasure is Disney's relentlessly fun entry in the genre, a tale about "a treasure beyond all imagining," hinged on secret maps and clues hidden within documents like the Declaration of Independence and locations like Independence Hall. And of course there's only one man who really believes it exists, Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicholas Cage), a renegade historian whose career has been tarnished by his belief in the mythical treasure.

As the cryptic clues are revealed, Gates, his brainy, wisecracking partner Riley (Justin Bartha), and Dr. Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger), the obligatory unwilling "hot chick" partner—as she's referred to by one of the characters—have to race to stay one step of the evil and nasty Ian (Sean Bean) and his gang of henchmen who are trying to solve the very same puzzle. And one of the keys to the puzzle starts with needing to steal the Declaration of Independence.

To accept passage on this ride you have to roll with certain mile-wide plot devices, and though the whole premise of stealing the Declaration of Independence is both ridiculous and clever, if you don't buy into this the rest of the film will be an enormous struggle, because it gets crazier from there onward. But crazy in a good way, crazy in that big-tub-of-popcorn-big-budget-action-movie kind of way that makes me secretly as giddy as a schoolgirl because filmmakers like Jon Turtletaub (Phenomenon) do it up right. There's computer hacking (including the necessary utterance "we're in", used no less than twice!), elaborate action sequences, and enough pseudo-history to make the armchair conspiracy buff tingle with the knowledge that maybe someone else gets it, too.

The actors don't get a lot of room to stretch beyond one-note characterizations—Cage as the driven believer, Bartha as wacky sidekick, Kruger as doubting potential love interest, Bean as treacherous villain—and it is really the puzzle-solving and action scenes that take precedence. Take for example the heist of the Declaration of Independence, which occurs early in the story; it is a swift piece of understandably unbelievable hokum that ends up being one of the tightest sequences in the film, a mindlessly clever series of no-way-it-could-happen-but-they-made-it-look-easy theft that only movies can do well.

I know a lot of movie fans are turned off by seeing the words "Jerry Bruckheimer," and while he certainly isn't an arthouse icon, he generally delivers the type of broad, well-funded escapism that means there will a large number of special effects and generally more than enough action sequences for three films. If you don't look for deep meaning you usually won't be disappointed in a Bruckheimer production, but with National Treasure the ante is upped slightly by a story that is layered in real-life mysteries, in conjunction with high-tech heists to at least make the journey a clever "what if."


Rating for Style: A-
Rating for Substance: A-

 

Image Transfer

	One
Aspect Ratio	2.35:1 - Widescreen
Original Aspect Ratio	yes
Anamorphic	yes

Image Transfer Review: This appears to be the same (very fine) transfer as the original release. Image detail is soft, especially during the final act, but shadows, colors and fleshtones hold up quite well under a variety of lighting conditions. No major grain issues or debris, but haloing and ringing are evident periodically, making this a less than perfect transfer, but still a very nice one looking one overall.

Image Transfer Grade: B+
 

Audio Transfer

	Language	Remote Access
DS 2.0	Spanish	yes
Dolby Digital 5.1	English, French	yes

Audio Transfer Review: Audio is provided in a clean Dolby Digital 5.1 surround mix, a properly loud and aggressive track for a film with so many action sequences. Directional movement across the front channels is pronounced, while dialogue retains clarity even during the loudest passages. There are plenty of great ambient sound cues, such as during the exploration of an old ship where creaks and moans rise and fall out of the rears, and while the .LFE isn't abused, it does deliver a steady amount of deep thumps.

Audio Transfer Grade: A- 

Disc Extras

Full Motion menu with music
Scene Access with 20 cues and remote access
Subtitles/Captions in English, French, Spanish with remote access
7 Deleted Scenes
1 Alternate Endings
8 Featurette(s)
Packaging: Keep Case
Picture Disc
2 Discs
1-Sided disc(s)
Layers: RSDL

Extra Extras:

1. Trivia track

Extras Review: A classic case of double-dipping, this two-disc edition includes all the extras from the original release and a second disc scantily clad with a few shot, largely supurfluous featurettes. If you have the original, there is no reason to upgrade. If you don't, the new stuff isn't worth the premium you'll pay (altogether, there's less than 45 minutes of new stuff to go through).

Disc 1 is identical to the original release in terms of extras. Disney has tried to carry forward the treasure hunt theme into the supplements, with extra features divvied up into three levels, two of which can only be accessed by piecing together clues found in previous levels. That is, of course, unless you look in the included "logbook" insert, which resorts to a spoiler for those not interested in clue following.

The first level of extras contains National Treasure on Location (11m:17s), a typical EPK piece that mixes interviews, behind-the-scenes footage and film clips, and while most of it is generic and lightweight, there were a few interesting pieces on the digital effects and such. Next is a pair of deleted scenes (07m:45s), available with an optional commentary from director Jon Turtletaub, as well as a brief intro (:42s) where he explains why scenes get cut in the first place. The longer of the two scenes, running just over six minutes, is actually an extended version of an existing sequence, with the shorter clip featuring an appearance by President Andrew Jackson. An Opening Scene Animatic (02m:21s), available with optional Turtletaub commentary and intro (:21s), is a spiffy bit of animation more polished than most DVD animatics, and covers the opening scene where Christopher Plummer recounts the centuries-long journey of the mysterious treasure. There is also an Alternate Ending (01m:01s), again outfitted with optional director commentary and intro (:45s), and this one is geared more toward priming the pump for a sequel, though Turtletaub claims there isn't one planned. Yet.

Follow the easy clues and you'll get to Level Two, where a pair of featurettes and a game await you. Treasure Hunters Revealed (08m:30s) takes a look at real-life treasure-seekers, and seems ready to boost the sales of metal detectors. The Knights Templar (04m:59s) is a very brief attempt to explain the truths behind their origins, but really, five minutes isn't nearly enough time to do the subject justice. There is also a brief game called Riley Poole's Decode This!, which is essentially remote control busy work, but it does include the info needed to get to the final level.

Level Three contains the ability to access a text-based trivia track, viewable while watching the film. Odd and entertaining bits of trivia, both historical and production-related (what building doubled as the White House, how many films has Christopher Plummer appeared in) pop up periodically. But to be honest, on a film already topping the two-hour mark that's a lot of trivia.

The new material begins on Disc 2 with five more deleted scenes with optional commentary from the director explaining why they were cut. The answer is, invariably, for pacing reasons. And also because they are a little boring.

There are also four new, rather fluffy featurettes. Ciphers, Codes, and Codebreakers (11m:48s) discusses the basis for all the talk of codes and code-breaking in the film, with a surface look at codes throughout history and a glance into the world of code-breakers. The six-minute Exploding Charlotte piece explores the set for the ice-bound ship that opens the film, which was actually located in a freezer storage facility in Los Angeles. Turteltaub offers insightful tidbits such as the fact that, since the actors were wearing arctic gear, had they not filmed in a cold environment, everyone would have been hot. Really?

To Steal a National Treasure (05m:46s) explores the "reality" of the heist sequence without actually telling us anything about the actual security at the National Archives, nor making the sequence seem any more plausible in the slightest. On the Set of National History (06m:08s) covers the fact that much of the film was shot on-location in Washington, D.C., in and around the historical sites that prove integral to the plot.

As a nice touch, all of the new extras on Disc 2 are subtitled in three languages.

Extras Grade: B-
 

Final Comments

The movie is still implausible fun, but this "special edition" re-release is yet another bald-faced cash grab by a studio looking to promote a sequel. I wouldn't bother with it. They barely did. Nice foil-embossed slipcover, though.

Joel Cunningham 2007-12-19