Movie Review: National Treasure (2004) an Action Adventure Heist Movie

OK, this is one of my favorite movies which was released by Walt Disney Pictures. It means this picture is for all family members and can be considered to have much less violent scenes. This movie is about a historian named Ben (played by Nicolas Cage) along with computer expert Riley Poole (played by  Justin Lee Bartha) and archivist Abigail Chase (played by Diane Kruger) search for massive lost Freemason treasure, which includes a map hidden on the back of United States Declaration of Independence. 

This movie is really fun and enjoyable to watch as they tried eagerly to find the treasure, while in the same time there's a competitor chasing the same thing. This competitor is Ian Howe (played by Sean Bean), an entrepreneur, crime boss, treasure hunter, and also Ben's former friend. This movie is also starred by several other actors, including Jon Voight (as Patrick Henry Gates, a former treasure hunter and Ben's father) and Harvey Keitel (as Agent Peter Sadusky, an FBI special agent in pursuit of the stolen of Declaration of Independence). This movie was directed by Jon Turteltaub (also producer with Jerry Bruckheimer), based on screenplay written by Jim Kouf, Cormac Wibberley, and Marianne Wibberley. 

The running time of this movie is long enough (131 minutes), but trust me... you will be glued to your seat all the time without realizing it. Is this movie successful? Absolutely. It had worldwide box office of USD 347,5 million with the budget of USD 100 million. The sequel came up in 2007 titled National Treasure: Book of Secrets, with the same casts. In my opinion, the sequel is okay but not as good as the original. The first National Treasure (2004) was filmed primarily in Los Angeles, Washington, New York, Philadelphia, and Utah. The Independence Hall scenes we filmed at the replica of Independence Hall at Knott's Berry Farm (California). Wow... I myself never knew there's a replica of it. Hollywood is really serious in making movies, isn't it?

What did critics say about this movie? Not bad. Rotten Tomatoes gave score of 5,30/10 and said: "National Treasure is not treasure, but it's a fun ride for those who can forgive its highly improbable plot". Metacritic gave the score of 39/100 (why low?). While another media, CinemaScore, gave the film an average grade of "A-" (from A+ to F scale). National Treasure also won BMI Film Music Awards in 2005 and nominated for other categories, such as: Best Movie Action/Adventure by Teen Choice Awards, Best Special Effect by Visual Effects Society Awards, and even Best Supporting Actress for Diane Kruger by Saturn Award. 

OK... last question: No more sequels? Only two of them? Actually there were plans to make another sequel since 2013. However, it never happened till 2020's. In April 2022, Nicolas Cage said to a media that "...the priority is to turn it into a TV show..." (AMA, Reddit). As for me, I think it's OK not to have another sequels. There's a tendency that the sequels are seldom to be better than the original. So, let these two sequels alone... haha. Anyway, I'm lucky enough to have original VCD (sadly not DVD) of these 2 remarkable movies. I'm an introvert person. I have many movie or music DVD/VCD collections which entertain me in my simple life. That's all for this moment, guys. Maybe next time I'll write another (movie/music) review. Happy weekend.