A Timely Conspiracy: National Treasure on DVD

By Jonathan Berohn

If nothing else, Hollywood is great at being derivative.  When something new is popular, you can bet that movies in the same vein will start popping out of the woodwork.  It should comes as no surprise then, that Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code has started spawning imitations like National Treasure.  That’s not to say National Treasure isn’t an entertaining film, but the filmmakers have unfortunately adopted Brown’s penchant for the absurd as well as his flair for the dramatic.

The Movie

Nicolas Cage stars as a semi-whacky, completely obsessed amateur archaeologist/treasure hunter, who has dedicated his life to discovering the lost treasure of the Knights Templar, which somehow made its way to the United States via a conspiracy of Masons.  This conspiracy, of course, was embedded in the highest ranks of early American political life.  Prominent members naturally included Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin.

If you can somehow swallow all this, the movie takes off on an amusingly diverting jaunt through a series of obstacles and puzzles, which our hero has to solve to find the treasure.

Of course, there is the obligatory bad guy and the love interest, but, all in all, the movie is fairly entertaining.  Until you get to the end, of course.  Like Brown’s books that inspired it, National Treasure opts for the grandiose and the absurd over the convincing and satisfying.  But they do leave room for a sequel.

The Extras

The DVD offers the traditional extras like director’s commentaries and on location documentaries.  You also get an alternate ending and some in-depth featurettes on both the Knights Templar and modern treasure hunters, as well as an interactive puzzle solving game.