National Treasure

Or the movie that should've ended Nicolas Cage's career, but didn't.

National Treasure is all kinds of horrible.  I'll get to the details, but first, let's see if this sounds familiar:

An ancient secret society hides a series of cryptic clues in plain view in places of great historical importance that would lead the most discerning individuals to find a great historical treasure.  There's some seedy characters who are out for the treasure for their own selfish reasons, so it's up to a protagonist with near encyclopedic knowledge of ancient history to solve the riddles and discern the clues that will lead him to the treasure first.  Along the way he meets an impossibly hot female professional who he inevitably hooks up with romantically.

That's right, it's like the plot of a bad dan brown novel!

Now i know what you're thinking: "a bad dan brown novel"?  Surely you jest!  That would imply there are "good" dan brown novels.

Of course, this is no coincidence.  National Treasure was released at the end of 2004, a year after Dan Brown's successful The Da Vinci Code (4 years after Angels and Demons), and it makes no mistake that it is blantantly ripping off the plot, but with the backdrop of the US instead of Europe.  I guess Disney felt that using a European setting would be too similar.  Either that or they felt average americans would be too stupid to accept a setting outside the United States.

Interestingly enough, a lot of the same "ancient masonic mysteries" appear in National Treasure as in The Lost Symbol.  One might cynically think this a case of the plagiarised ripping off the plagiariser, but i think it's probably more likely that they're both borrowing heavily from the same mythos.

But enough preamble, let's run down the plot in a little more detail.  I know i'm breaking my cardinal sin of "not spoiling" here, but screw it.  If it's good enough for other reviewers to spoil movies, it's good enough for me.  Besides, the movie's terrible anyway, so i'm doing you a favour.

SPOILER TIME

Nicolas Cage plays an unlikeable man-child that believes himself to be an honset-to-goodness Knight(s Templar) and has tasked himself with finding and protecting the hidden Masonic treasure of the title.  After following a clue given to him by his grandfather decades ago, Cage, with the help of a wealth financier (Sean Bean), manages to track down a clue that eventually points him to a map written on the Declaration of Independence.

Because Cage and his comedy relief side-kick (Justin Bartha) are good guys, they immediately conclude it's impossible to follow the trail since it would require getting their hands on the actual Declaration of Independence.  A movie, however, needs conflict, so Bean decides he's going to steal it anyway.  Cage of course swears he'll stop him from committing such a crime, thereby quing the forced conflict of the movie.  Bean does the usual villain rant "if you're not with me, you're expendable" and we're treated to a rather pointless firefight.  Why?  Why not just lie to Cage about stealing the Declaration of Independence and go about scheming behind his back anyway?

Anyway, things go from bad to worse as Cage discovers no one believes his warnings that someone is going steal the Declaration of Independence.  Cage, being the "stand up" guy that he is, decides the only way to keep the Declaration of Independence from being stolen is to... wait for it... steal the Declaration of Independence.  Of course, once he's done this, he views it as his duty as a "responsible citizen" to follow the map and find the masonic treasure himself.

All this, of course, makes the primary conflict now look silly since both the good guys and bad guys have identical goals and methods, with the only real defining characteristic being that Bean and his men were quick to get violent.

Oh well? ...

Of course, in the process of stealing the Declaration of Independence, Cage and Bartha end up accidentally kidnapping Dr Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger), who is the head of the National Archives and protector of the document, while trying to evade Bean and his men.  Kruger wastes no time in whining like a child for Cage to give back the Declaration of Independence, prompting Bartha, wise man that he is, to remind Cage of the duct tape in the back of the van.

Sadly, this being a Disney movie ("for the kids!" and all that) and the strict laws requiring a sideline love story in movies overrule Bartha's better judgment, so Cage turns down this suggestion and Kruger instantly becomes a willing party and love interest without a single word more of protest.

Lazy story writing makes baby jesus cry!

Now that the writers have painfully beaten their way to the point of the story they wanted to start at to begin with, it's time for the protagonists to actually get some "treasure findin'" done - that is, by interpreting the clues and discerning the puzzles.  To do this, the characters take turns playing stupid just so they can explain the clues to the audience and presumably each other.

After some improbably plot twists and action sequences, including a firefight in the streets that attracts the attention of no one, the Declaration of Independence and some other MacGuffin's land in the possession of the badguys and the plot finds the good guys and bad guys working together once again.  While at first it seems almost consensual, it turns out that the badguys have also taken to kidnapping and have abducted Cage's father (Jon Voight) to use as a bargaining chip to force Cage's compliance.

Of course, why they really need Cage's help when they have all the clues themselves is a mystery.  The writers handwave it as being "Cage knows more about history" and can more readily discern the clues.  A stretch, to be sure, as the bad guys seemed to have done just fine keeping up the chase, even snubbing the FBI (no, really) and evading the police without holding any of the MacGuffin's themselves.

Anyway, with Cage's help, the group finally manage to trace the clues to an underground crypt, but run into a dead end.  Bean is convinced that it's not a dead end and manages to threaten one last clue out of Cage and the other good guys before leaving them to die in the catacombs, along with the Declaration of Independence and all the other MacGuffin's they've collected, since he apparently no longer needs them.

Bartha moans for a bit about dying, but as it turns out, Cage had given Bean a fake clue to get rid of him while the real treasure was actually right under their noses.  Cage and company find the treasure, contact the police and return the Declaration of Independence.

End of story, right?  Well, there's still all that uncomfortable bit of "stealing the Declaration of Independence" and "resisting arrest" and the like.  So, what does Cage do?  Why, bribe the FBI agent, of course (he even says so in the movie)!  He gives the treasure to various museums with a number of conditions, ranging from giving credit to his colleagues to avoiding jail for himself.

It's revealed that the agent is a high ranking Freemason and he accepts the bribe, provided someone else goes to jail in Cage's stead.  Bean takes the fall, Cage and Kruger get married and everyone lives happily ever after.  The ending is just as cliched and ripped off as the rest of the movie, though arguably in a different sort of way.

By the way, just for the record, here's the breakdown:

Good Guys: breaking and entering, stealing, kidnapping, resisting arrest and bribing an officer of the law.
Bad Guys: breaking and entering, attempted stealing, kidnapping, resisting arrest and attempted murder.
Motivation for both: finding a treasure for personal gain.

So yeah, i guess the bad guys are worse than the good guys, but it's a close call.

Well, that's National Treasure.  It looks, feels and plays out like a Dan Brown-esque adventure, but with the notable exception of being up front about it's factual inaccuracies.  Unfortunately, it's not a particularly good adventure movie and the flaws against it are numerous: the plot is forced, the suspense feels fake, the characters are not particularly clever or endearing and the story is childish.  Also, it stars Nicolas Cage.

I've heard other reviewers citing this movie as a fun ride if you can get past the inplausibility, but i think that's a stretch.  After all, any movie, no matter how horrible, can be a "fun ride" if you can get past its flaws.  Well, maybe not any movie... *cough*Observe and Report*cough*.

Over all, i give this movie 2.5 of Dan Brown's books out of 5: D.

Astroboy

The movie based on the anime based on the manga from more than 50 years ago!  I guess this means Hollywood's slowly running out of other people's ideas to make into movies and it's only a matter of time before we see something creative and new, right?  RIGHT!?

...

 So, what about the movie Astroboy?

The movie seems to take a very bizarre focus.  While one would initially expect the primary audience would be fans of the old cartoon, there is an inordinate amount of "childishness" in the movie itself.  It isn't bad to appeal to wider audiences, i suppose, but it sure is jarring when you try to mix childish humour in with more "adult" themes without any form of subtlety or nuance.

The plot is as simplistic as it comes.  As a quick gloss over, here it is:

Dr Bill Tenma (he sounds japanese, right?), voiced by Nicholas Cage, works as a military scientist for the obvious villain of the movie, President Stone (voiced by Donald Sutherland).  During a weapons demonstration, his son, Toby, is killed horribly.

Dr Tenma, crushed, uses his robotics knowledge to build a robot that looks like his son and shares all his memories.  Dr Elefun (Bill Nighy) warns Dr Tenma of the problems of this, but Tenma doesn't listen and is more than a little disconcerted when the resulting Astroboy (Freddie Highmore) is not like his son at all, except in physical appearance.  Tenma then rejects the confused Astroboy and the movie "officially starts" as Astroboy goes on his quest to discover what his "true purpose in life" is.

*phew*

There's a whole bunch of problems with this set up, not the least of which being, "What the hell is Cage doing still making movies?"  Seriously, his career should've ended with National Treasure (next time... next time...).

The stupidness in the plot is that Toby wasn't really "accidentally" killed, either.  He was killed because of the direct, malicious interference of the bad guy.  Stone was pretty clear, too, that he was going to do something dangerous that all the scientists in the room were against.  Of course, Dr Tenma seems to maintain his loyalty to the military inexplicably after this tragedy and his later rejection of Astroboy makes him anything but a sympathetic character in the eyes of the viewer.  Some how, the movie still treats him as such, though.

There's also a lot of talk about "positive" blue energy and "negative" red energy that makes absolutely no sense but drives the plot for the better part of the movie.  As far as the viewer's concerned, though, the only thing that seems to matter is that blue = good and red = bad.  Yup, that simple.

The biggest failing of the movie is in the characters: you'll either love them or hate them, there is no inbetween.  Characters in this movie come in two flavours.  Flavour one: childishly simplistic, like the obviously evil President Stone or the obviously good Dr Elefun.  Flavour two: painfully unlikable, like any of the so-called "comic relief" characters.  The latter are easily the most annoying and unnecessary part of the movie, yet that didn't stop the writers from injecting painfully unfunny jokes into as many scenes as possible.

Despite all the above, though, i do have to say Astroboy isn't the worst piece of shi... cinamatography i've seen and is in fact somewhat entertaining.  It's certainly better than the likes of 9, which has mysteriously managed a rating higher than Astroboy on www.rottentomatoes.com (albeit, both have "rotten" ratings).

Astroboy's not a movie to be taken seriously and the last scene puts the entire movie into perspective:

After defeating the villain and claiming to have found his "purpose" in the world, Astroboy finds acceptance in society as a hero.  Instantly, out of nowhere, a giant tentacled eye appears in the sky.  Someone declares it an alien invasion and off Astroboy goes to save the day!

It's such a ludicrous scene, you can't help but smile - and that's just what i did.  I give this movie 6 and a half nostalgic moments out of 10: C+, why not.

Signs

 I had seen this movie before, but i'm reviewing it only now for two reasons: 1) i've not seen any more recent movie and wanted a review up and 2) i saw Signs recently.

Firstly, since this movie is a good few years old now, i'm going to assume i can spoil the hell out of it.  If you haven't seen the movie by now, likely it's not your interest anyway.

Signs is an M Night Shyamalan movie that's more accurately described as a suspense-horror movie than either one of those separately.  Mel Gibson plays a former Catholic priest who's lost his faith thanks to a random accident that killed his wife 6 months earlier.  Because the real life Mel Gibson is fanatically religious, it's probably a safe guess that his character will "get over" this little loss in faith by the end of the movie.

The movie starts off with the characters finding some crop circles in their corn field and are curious as to the origins of them.  While Mel originally believes it to be the work of rowdy neighbourhood teenagers, he is proven wrong as the real source is slowly revealed to be something considerably more alarming.

Signs utilizes the usual effects of horror movies and there's lots of scary scenes that are derived from shock value - loud noise or unexpected visual just thrown onto the screen.  This is made more pronounced by stillness of the other scenes to the point of complete inaction.  A fine tactic for horror movies, but it only really works as an atmosphere builder when the characters show some signs of life on their own, which the characters of Signs don't.  Creepy vacant stares and slow paced monotone conversations are the norm for Mel Gibson's family.

But atmosphere building is atmosphere building and i can't really fault a film for these methods if they're successful - and Signs is certainly successful at this, if only because the overwhelming calm of the first 20 minutes of the film is so omnipresent.

The most glaring problems of the movie come with the aliens themselves.  There is literally so many idiotic contrivances that slowly stack up it can be hard to maintain any kind of suspension of disbelief.  Like, why are alien transmissions able to be picked up on, of all things, a baby monitor but not the satellites and communication tracking systems of the militaries of the world?  And it's not just "vague static" that's picked up, but a message so clear that even the main characters recognize it as an alien code.  Guess the military should start investing in baby monitor technology or something.

Now, that's just a taste of what's to come.  Once the invasion actually starts, the stupidity level jumps through the roof.  Mel Gibson boards up the windows of his house to prevent the aliens getting in and he and his family hide in the basement, blocking the door.  Of course, this kind of tactic wouldn't work against an invading human, yet somehow these masters of interstellar space travel and cloaking technologies are utterly foiled.

The movie attempts to handwave this by saying the aliens "wouldn't use their own technology" in an invasion because they don't want us going nuclear and spoiling the resources.  This is a huge leap in reasoning and a failure of suspension of disbelief.

Now think about it: just because aliens aren't using technology on us, would we not use it on them?  Put it into perspective: if Iraqi troops were storming Washington DC (and not the other way around), do you think the US would just leave their nuclear arsenal untouched and rely only on conventional arms?  Pft!  Don't make me laugh!  And Iraqis are just "weak ol' humans" after all.

Further, if the aliens can master faster-than-light travel, a marvel human scientists believe is impossible, their technology advantage would so far outstrip our own that it wouldn't be so much a war as a complete and utter curb stomp.  It'd be much more in the aliens interest to end the conflict swiftly with their advanced technology than to let it drag on and increase the risk of nuclear retaliation.

But let's put all of that aside for a moment.  Let's just say that this idiotic handwave of "not wanting nuclear retaliation" makes any kind of sense.  Let's just give M Night Shyamalan the benefit of the doubt.  Ok, you still have aliens on earth being denied entry by what is essentially a locked door.  God damn, man, you don't need advanced technology to overcome that obstacle.  A stone age axe would do!  But instead the aliens pound impotently against the door in increasingly futile attempts.  It's.  Just.  So.  Stupid.

But it gets worse...

Invading a planet and not using your vast technological superiority over them is one level of dumb.  It increases alien casualties and the chance that nations may retaliate nuclearly.  So, how can fighting "hand to hand" be dumber?  What if the planet you're invading and the enemy that you're fighting are composed 70-90% of something you're incredibly weak to?  Yup.  Aliens are weak to water.

Why would a race of aliens weak to the most abundant element on this planet try and invade it?  What if it rains?  We already laugh at Hitler and Napolean's armies dying in Russia's frigid winters.  Can you imagine if an army had to stop fighting because of a little fog or rain or humidity because it might melt their skin?

Further still, human blood, sweat, saliva and other fluids all contain large amounts of water.  For all intents and purposes, we'd be the Ridley Scott Alien to the Signs Aliens!  Do you think humanity would want to invade an acid laden planet of acid inhabited by acid-spewing aliens that bleed acid while armed with nothing but their fists and wits?  Hell no!  That's called being too fucking stupid to live - which i guess the Signs aliens are.

I'm also left to wonder, what the hell resources were these short-bus riding aliens after to begin with?  Not water: it kills them.  Heavy metals are more common around supernovae, which should be easy for them to get to with their space crafts.  They obviously can't use any of the carbon life forms here if water is toxic to them.

The movie makes passing mention that they may have been after humans themselves, but this also makes no sense.  The aliens are vastly superior technologically and physically, easily jumping 2 stories from a standing position.  How the hell could a weak ass human help this kind of species?  We're not even remotely physiologically the same, either, so medical experimentation is out.  There is no reason why these aliens would want to invade earth.  Zero.  This fact alone makes the aliens in this movie more laughable than scary.

*sigh*

The ending is another kind of stupid all together: a story telling stupid.  The aliens, defeated, flee in terror so fast that they leave their wounded behind.  One of their wounded is an alien with the life-altering debilitation of a chopped off finger (courtesy of Mel Gibson).  The alien, livid, apparently, stays behind with the sole intent on seeking vengeance on Gibson's family.

Uh, what?  This makes no sense!  The aliens all look the same to us (as in, the audience).  I'm betting humans all look the same to them.  How would this alien know who and where Mel Gibson is?  But even beyond that, say he did know; is losing a finger so worth vengeance that you will throw your very life away for the mere chance to get even?

Remember, in this aliens eyes, none of this can possibly be sure.  Humans are now killing aliens with water, his buddies are all gone and never coming back, for all he knows Mel Gibson could be dead, dying or lying in hiding with enough rations to live for weeks.  To this alien, it's a complete and total suicide run with a very slim chance of success.  This alien dies of course, but in a much more dramatic way than in the next rain storm.

Shyamalan goes out of his way to make the defeat of the aliens, particularly the last one, seem almost like divine intervention.  Of course, when you're dealing with a species of alien so wrecklessly stupid and self-destructive, it's a wonder you'd need any divine help at all.  Maybe it's only by God's good graces that such a pathologically stupid alien race decided to invade thereby ensuring human victory.  Either way, Gibson's character uses the events as proof that God is real and is assured that his family only survived because of God's will.

We are told that the other human casualties are in the millions which leads one to wonder: why would God spare Gibson's family but kill millions of others?  Did those other people not deserve life, too?  Even in the movies, God's a dick.

Oh well.  I can't really slam this movie all that much.  As far as suspense and quick shock value, it does its job well.  Even watching it a second time i felt a little chill in my body, so Shyamalan must've done something right.

I give this movie 3 failed invasions out of 5.  That's a C+, say.