National Treasure

Directed by John Turteltaub

Walt Disney Pictures

Yes, the previews are true: this is a movie about a treasure map on the back of the Declaration of Independence

People say that Nick Cage’s career has been going downhill since The Rock. I say thee nay! He pulled off a tour-de-force that had me fooled for about 20 minutes that he was destined for immortality when he got shot in Con Air and didn’t flinch or anything. But he couldn’t pull the wool over our eyes forever. We know those were fake bullets, man.

So now Nick has a new blockbuster film, National Treasure. I’d have to say that movie should be renamed before it is released from National Treasure to National Blunder. It sucked. I guess Jerry Bruckheimer thought that no one actually saw King Arthur, so he figured he could take another ride on his Pirates of The Caribbean coattails for the second time in five months.

National Treasure is about a third-generation treasure hunter searching for the greatest treasure the world has ever known, ever. Cage, who seems to have convinced himself that he’s a modern day Juan Ponce De Leon, runs around like an idiot, examining money like a McDonald’s cashier dubious about a customer paying for an item on the dollar menu with a 10-dollar bill. At one point in the film, Cage’s sidekick, a first generation treasure hunter played by Justin Bartha—I know what you’re thinking: sooooo J.V.—cracks an ironic smile and asks his fellow treasure hunters, “Who wants to go down the creepy tunnel inside the tomb first?”

Unbeknownst to the trusty helper Bartha, his query actually captures the essence of the burden placed on the spectator in seeing this half-assed movie. Who in fact wants to go down a creepy tunnel of a movie? I don’t think you do. Personally, I wish I had not. Or at least I wish I that tomb had something a lot cooler inside than this crap.

I have a piece of advice for you, Bruckheimer: Stick to your own treasure, pirates, and just call it a day. Still, part of me feels bad for the tired producer. I mean, he followed the formula for success. The title includes not one, but two words that usually have the recipe for box office bank. I mean, “National.” Wow. And what about “Treasure?” For a second I thought that the movie was actually a sequel to Pirates.

But the movie is lacking something. It definitely was not Jon Voight, the consummate professional, who came through with a performance that rivals the one he turned in for The Karate Dog as his personal best in 2004. Maybe what it lacked was a good script, decent plot, and solid acting. Step it up, Jerry.

—Theodore B. Bressman

The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie

Paramount Pictures

Directed by Sherm Cohen, Stephen Hillenburg and Mark Osborne

So I was expecting to dislike The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie when I rolled into the Loews Boston Common Theater at 10 a.m. last Saturday. Sandwiched between two seven-year-olds, I began to question my life purpose, but when the film began, I began to realize what everyone’s always talking about. Well, maybe I didn’t really understand what everyone was talking about in terms of the subversive messages that the film supposedly projects to its mature audience, but I was certainly entertained.