A few words about... National Treasure

This is a film I missed at the theater.

I, too, am quite interested in the American Revolution and this nation's founders. I am looking forward to giving National Treasure a try. Am especially pleased to hear Robert's for the cinematography.

I really enjoyed this film and I despise and loathe Nicolas Cage (), so that's saying a lot (The only other film that he's in that I liked was Raising Arizona). I'm nuts about the American Revolution, so I don't know why I was so shocked that I liked Treasure. I'm really looking forward to May 3rd! (more for Phantom but that's another thread...)

Bottom line: It's a real solid movie, nothing truly great but really enjoyable.

Saw this one in the theater with my wife and we both enjoyed it tremendously. Already have the DVD pre-ordered. As I posted in the review thread when this movie came out, Cage was in his "Stanley Goodspeed" mode from THE ROCK, and that ain't too bad on him.

I also enjoyed it. I also thought the following (for those who have seen it)
Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

I totally agree with Robert about National Treasure. We saw it in the theater (an increasing rarity for my wife and me). Thoroughly enjoyable, and it reminded me of why I love the books of Clive Cussler, which share a similar vibe with National Treasure. Adventure with historical twists. This one goes in my collection.

It is what it is: a solid action film. The plot gets more preposterous as the movie goes on, but it is at least fun.

Jason

This movie had an interesting box office run.

It gets slammed by most critics.

But for some reason it stays in the box office top ten for several weeks.

So I decided to check it out wondering where the disconnect occurred between critics and fans (not that it is uncommon for a movie to be panned and still popular with movie-goers).

I really love the movie, I also enjoy history and the American Revolution. The critics probably hated the outrageous plot, but if you can just sit back and enjoy without over-analyzing most should enjoy it.

That's all I had to hear. The Rock is one of my top 3 'movies for guys who like movies' along with AOTC and The Italian Job. Thanks Robert, I'll definitely put it on my to buy list

Robert Harris writing about "National Treasure"? What's next, Criterion putting out an edition of "Armageddon"?!?

No. A Criterion "National Treasure"!

(Disney COULD license it out to them, the same way they did "The Rock")

So, how was the transfer....since this IS the SOFTWARE section?

Missed this in theaters despite having the same interests Mr. Harris listed.

Looking forward to it.

You are not alone. I watched this 3 days ago and want to see it again. I enjoyed watching it.

Sold!

Although I did enjoy National Treasure more than I expected to in a "check your brain at the door" type of way, this movie was about as authentic as the Patriot was. Both were decent action films, but nothing I would recommend to be viewed in a US History class.

It's a cliche, but National Treasure truly is the kind of movie they don't make anymore. It's a safe, clean, fun adventure movie, one that parents can feel totally comfortable taking their kids too and still enjoy themselves. We haven't really seen this kind of film since the early days of Lucas and Spielburg. Not that it's on quite that level of quality, but that's the kind of vibe I got while watching it.

It's proof that you CAN still make a decent movie at the PG level. Sex, drugs, swearing, and constant envelope-pushing violence are not prerequisites to a decent story. Not that I'm a prude or anything, but this was a refreshing change that reaffirmed my faith in human nature just a bit.

And then I saw Sin City. LOL

Actually, I can say the same for "Pirates Of The Carribean", plus it is a better film to boot.

One thing I did like about "National Treasure" is that it looks like they shot most of the stuff on location. It was nice to see a movie that takes place in DC actually BE in DC.

Jason

Anyone???

Here is a link to a review of the disk:
National Treasure Review

I enjoyed the film slightly less than Sahara...but what I found particularly refreshing was that the film makers actually seemed to make a conscious decision to exlude the normal vulgarity and sexuality...making this one of the truly few films of 1994 to which I would take any age of children.

Looking forward to the DVD.

Peter: I agree with your sentiment...but I think there must have been some wacky conversion as your post crossed the border into the U.S.

I got this, Pocahontas, and The Chorus all at the same time and haven't had time to watch it (watched and have been writing reviews for the other two...to post soon!). I'll try to get this one up as well after Pocahontas is finished...at the very least I'll give it a spin tonight and respond about PQ...

Weeks of *nothing* and then all of a sudden three films at once...the trials of reviewing...

-dave

Im actually a bit disappointed that the review says that both the audio and video are not anything spectacular. It seemed several years ago that one thing you could count on were big budget action flicks would always have excellent A/V quality, but with what seems to be a disturbing pattern recently, studios aren't giving their all in terms of A/V presentation, which I just think is sad.

I posted in another thread on here a couple months ago that I think that the studios are purposely downgrading first release DVDs so that future double dips, or HD versions look that much better. Many people disagreed with me, but it just seems like its making more and more sense.

While I did not personally find the film very good, I did find it entertaining. My major complaint is in the picture-quality department:

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...postid=2661394

Mike, I think you may be on to something. I make mention of that notion in my review.

RAH,

By D1 are we talking 1920 x 1080?

Isn't that what most other studios are doing right now while at the same time providing far superior results?

Given that 720 x 480 resolution DVDs can look so much better when properly done...wondering where the weak-link in this chain really is. My suspician is that's at the mastering/encoding stage...there seems to be a literal "filgering" of high-frequency detail far-beyond what is necessary for downscaling to 720 x 480P...along with a tad bit of EE as if an MPEG encoder were trying to compensate for the softness by adding a bit of ringing...

RAH,

is the DI (thanks for clarifying! all an education here...) a necessary step to get from an HD master to DVD? Are other studios (WB) not mastering for DVD this way or doing it but managing to preserve image-fidelity in a more effective way?

If it follows similarly to known models of processing digital audio (which it does), then "processing" at the higher resolution to produce a satifactory HD master and downscaling for DVD only at the end-step would be better than downscaling and *then* processing.


The best DVDs that we see probably follow a path similar to this:

---

Film --> 1080P HD transfer --> Image Processing (color timing, cleaning, scratch-removal etc.) --> HD Master --> 480P Downscaling --> MPEG compression --> DVD.

---

I'll bet that titles like Cold Mountain, Kill Bill, and Open Range are doing something more like this:

---

Film --> 1080P HD Transfer --> Image Processing --> HD Master --> 480P Downscaling --> Image processing --> MPEG compression --> DVD.

---

Ideally, if one can create an HD master that "looks good", then simply downscaling to 480P and applying state-of-the-art MPEG2 compression, without any additional image-processing, should render fantastic results.

I'll bet that Cold Mountain, Kill Bill Vol. 1 (and 2), and National Treasure all received additional image-processing *after* being downscaled to DVD resolution. That should not only be unnecessary, it should be AVOIDED.

This would also explain why directors get to see an HD master of their film that "looks gorgeous" inspite of an eventual DVD that ends up looking like soft-focus digital mess.