National Treasure (DVD)

Personally I am still trying to wrap my ahead around how National Treasure made over $172 million at the domestic box-office. This is an okay movie, but due to the fact that the beginning and ending of this movie are downright lackluster I just can't figure out what the appeal is.

National Treasure is an obvious attempt at a new version of Indiana Jones, minus the charisma of Harrison Ford or the villainy of the Germans as Benjamin Gates (Cage) is determined to do his family justice by finding the hidden treasure of the Knights Templar, a treasure that his family has been looking for forever.

As Gates gets closer and closer to the treasure he soon realizes his next clue can be found in a hidden map on the back of the Declaration of Independence, and with a newly found enemy after the same treasure he soon learns that he is going to have to steal the Declaration to find his next clue, while at the same time keeping it safe and out of the hands of the enemy, which is where the actual good part of the movie finally starts.

It takes forever for this film to find its stride and once it gets going slowing down is just as difficult as getting started as it runs full-boar straight into a wall as it comes crashing to a close.

As for the DVD it actually offers up some interesting and entertaining tidbits, which is extremely hard to believe, and not because I didn't enjoy the movie, but because DVD games have never been my thing and in order to access all the special features on this disc you are going to have to play the games.

The first level of features includes a traditional making-of featurette, a group of deleted scenes, an opening scene animatic and an alternate ending to the film. The deleted scenes, animatic and alternate ending are all offered with optional director's commentary, which is actually the only commentary you are going to get as Turteltaub does not offer up his views in a commentary track, but there are other kinds of tracks to accompany the movie than just a commentary, and you will have to go deeper to find it.

Throughout the first four featurettes you are going to be offered clues at the end of each feature, which will gain you access to the second tier of bonus features, so pay attention and jot them down in the accompanying logbook found inside the DVD case.

The second tier of features is where you will get a couple of good treasure hunting features, the first one is titled "Treasure Hunters Revealed" and explores the world of a group of underwater treasure hunters and goes into how they find their plunder as well as how they restore and preserve it, it is actually quite interesting.

The second feature takes a look at the real legend behind the Knights Templar offering up fact and theories on an actual treasure, so you decide just how real it actually is, but the biggest deal is "Riley's Decode This" game, which you will have to go through in order to get to the third and final level of bonus features, which offers up a feature length trivia track.

The game itself is slightly interesting and not so tedious that you want to just yell at the screen in order to get to the additional feature, which most DVD games are, but there are a couple of points where you do wish you could just move things along.

Overall I would call National Treasure a decent feature, and I will watch it again, because it is a mindless bit of fun with a good group of special features, but I still remain baffled at how it pulled down so much cash.