2. National Treasure
If any of you reading have came across my previous articles for the site, you would probably know that I am an avid gaming fan. Better yet, I'm a massive fan of the gargantuan historical epic, Assassin's Creed III - which took place in Revolutionary America. Now, I mention this merely because of the setting. AC3 introduced me, a young Brit, to America before it was America. I was fascinated with the era, and found interest in the story of the founding fathers, and the story of a new world superpower. To quench my thirst for revolution, I decided to delve into film. And what did I find? Good ol' Nic Cage. Of course, with the film possessing the greatest actor of all time, National Treasure proved to be an enjoyable hour and a half - even though it glorified slave owners a bit
too much. It was a family fun, Disney thriller. But that's the thing about films that delve into the past (or even films that have anything to do with a man called Walt) - plotholes. Let's start
right at the beginning. So, Nicholas and co are in a frozen over ship, and it blows up to kingdom come. Our heroes manage to survive by, doing the most logical thing possible, and
hiding in the ship. No, even better, hiding in a concealed bunker, covered only by a wooden door. We later see that the blast spanned around a 100 yard radius, but physically couldn't pass through a two century old wooden plank, travelling five yards in the process. Benjamin and Riley should have died there. Simple as. There's also some crazy stuff about the
freaking Declaration of Independence. Why doesn't anyone treat it like the
freaking Declaration of independence? A guy shot at it three times in one scene, Cage can just so happen to roll it up without damaging it in the slightest, and also believe it intelligent to pour citric acid all over it. Apparently, lemon juice does no harm to one of the oldest and most priceless documents in history. Not even a scratch.
Then there's the issue regarding the entire plot. The bad guy (Sean Bean) elects to steal the Declaration in order to uncover the treasure map. So, in order to protect it from theft, Cage decides to steal it himself. Sure that was weird, but it was later addressed that Cage actually wanted to protect it from Bean's chemical testing. This begs the question of why Church (Cage) didn't team up with Bean. They were partners at the start of the movie, and together would have been able to swiftly steal it, then examine it, without any harm being produced. Think of how much time, and even lives, that could have been saved if they had done the completely logical thing. I could go on about how a water bottle is
not a magnifying glass, and about how trucks are
not meant to speed up and run people over on zebra crossing, but I think I've been too harsh on Disney today. After all, those money raking billionaires need a small break at least once in a while.