‘National’ not a treasure

JOHN DEPKO

Hollywood icon Jerry Bruckheimer produces a lot of very loud R-rated

action thrillers aimed at teenage head bangers. “Armageddon,� “Bad

Boys� and “Black Hawk Down� are just a few. But he finds his widest

audience when he tones down the madness and gets a PG rating as he

did with “Top Gun� and “Pearl Harbor.� He even partnered with Disney

for “Pirates of the Caribbean.�

“National Treasure� is his latest effort with Disney to create a

family-friendly adventure flick for holiday release. Completely

derivative, it borrows elements from so many other movies it’s hard

to keep track of them all. Like “Raiders of the Lost Ark� it has a

treasure hunt based on esoteric history. Like “Oceans Eleven� and

“Mission Impossible� it features a preposterous crime caper. This one

involves stealing the real Declaration of Independence. No kidding!

Like “Beverly Hills Cop� there are teams of good guys, bad guys

and misdirected police hunting down the same objective. The plot

rivals “JFK� and the Russian tax code for convoluted clues that must

be unraveled. But the amateur sleuth played by the always cheerful

Nicolas Cage manages to crack every bizarre riddle in a matter of

seconds. And he falls in love along the way. No kidding!

But each clue leads directly to yet another strange puzzle that

needs to be solved. Like a hundred other buddy movies, Cage has a

comical sidekick to help him out when his brain is befuddled. There

are cliffhangers, dark tunnels and death-defying falls from great

heights. It might all be exciting if it wasn’t so silly and

predictable at every turn. Still, the nearly sold out audience seemed

pleasantly entertained by the whole enterprise. If you like this sort

of thing, “National Treasure� is high budget, low risk formula movie

making at its commercial best.

* JOHN DEPKO is a Costa Mesa resident and a senior investigator

for the Orange County public defender’s office.