My Thoughts on NATIONAL TREASURE (Disney)

Peter Marlowe · 08-11-2008, 07:41 PM

Let me preface this "little review" by stating that I am a rabid Bruckheimer/Simpson film freak -- as was indicated at the closing credits of The Rock, it was a sad moment when Don Simpson passed away and Jerry Bruckheimer continued on with over-the-top production duties for summer check-your-brain-at-the-door blockbusters...I've loved almost every single one of the projects to come out of the Bruckheimer stable, including Crimson Tide, Gone in 60 Seconds, The Rock, Armageddon, Bad Boys/Bad Boys II, Pirates of the Caribbean and many others. The plots are so far-fetched and there are logic and reality holes in the screenplays so large you can send a Boeing 747 through them, but they're just plain fun and usually make for awesome home theater experiences from Disney's division that handles these duties, Buena Vista.

But I was surprised when Bruckheimer-produced National Treasure came along because I just didn't get the same feeling about this one like I did when sitting down to watch, say, Armageddon or Bad Boys...something was just missing here; I don't know if it was the ridiculously absurd plot or the way the Declaration of Independence was stolen "just so easily" or the chemistry that wasn't there between Nick Cage and his supporting cast like it was between him and Sean Connery in The Rock or the lack of "hectic energy" directors like Michael Bay bring to the collaboration films with him and Bruckheimer...I just don't know. And it's not that I'm not into films dealing with these matters -- I love the Mummy series; but the first National Treasure and especially its sequel are just too much for their own good with way, way too much going on from one scene to the next to, at times, even follow what the characters are talking about. The film runs a tick over two hours, but it really does feel more like three by the time you're done. While Stephen Sommers' The Mummy gets twisty and too deep for its own good as well at points, there's something about those films that were more enjoyable to me than the two American history-meets-Indiana Jones films Bruckheimer produced.

Yet, my better half enjoyed the National Treasures more than I, especially the first one, and it ended up on her Blu-ray want list. It arrived yesterday, via Amazon, and we sat down to watch it in 1080p and with uncompressed PCM audio. The plot, as you all well know, revolves around Nick Cage's character named Benjamin Gates, who supposedly holds a secret about a family legacy which tells of a massive treasure somehow linked to deep American history; the film opens with a young Gates being told a story by his grandfather (a waste of a role by the great Christopher Plummer) about some kind of "Knights Templar" who may have held the secret to this treasure...Gates grows up to take some treasure hunters looking for a ship that was buried near the Arctic Circle for more clues to this treasure. The best performance here may be from the film's "bad guy" played by Sean Bean (The Hitcher remake) who definitely made a better "villain" than Ed Harris did in the sequel; Bean and his men want the clues to the treasure for themselves, and the rest of the film concentrates on Bean searching for Cage and his sidekick who plot to steal the Declaration of Independence because there's an invisible map on the back of it that can lead them to the treasure. The trip gets tiresome after awhile, and one ridiculous clue leads to another as Cage and Bean go from Washington to New York to look under an old church for more clues to the treasure, with Bean eventually heading to Boston on a wild goose chase Cage sets him on. Did anyone else wonder how these groups of people could simply get to all these different destinations in so little time with no hassles? Along the way, we get guest appearances by Harvey Keitel, who plays the lead FBI agent tracking Cage (and later, Bean) because he's in possession of the stolen Declaration; my question is, can anyone take someone serious who actually wears a denim button down shirt and tie with a plaid jacket over it, as Keitel’s character does? What's the deal with that?

Anyway, we also get a performance by Jon Voight who plays Ben Gates' father, but most of the time he's running around in a plaid robe and glasses being told to "shut up" by the villains.

The main gripe I actually had with the whole thing revolves around Disney's Blu-ray presentation of this title, which I'll get to now...

VIDEO ANALYSIS:
1080p HIGH DEFINITION WIDESCREEN TRANSFER; 2.35:1

This was a mixed bag; now, Home Theater magazine had done a complete review of the sequel on Blu-ray and they said the original actually looked AND sounded better than that one...they claimed there was some "unnatural, added edge enhancement" that spoiled the transfer of the sequel. That doesn't seem to be the problem here, but I still wasn't that impressed...grain doesn't seem to be the issue, but there was something soft and not right about this transfer -- and that's not the norm for Disney's BD stable. Some shots look great -- such as skin definition and details on certain closeups of characters -- but then the transfer, in a very next scene, will lose resolution and become "DVD-looking flat" again; this goes back and forth for the run of the film. Darker, dimly-lit sequences suffer from that "twitchy dithering and noise" that plagues almost every high def disc since the format's launch, and dim scenes in particular suffer from that excessive softness I was talking about...when Cage and crew are talking and looking at maps and clues in dimly lit corridors and rooms, the image loses any sense of high definition and simply goes "flat"...now I know almost every other reviewer has given this title very high marks for the video and have described it as having an almost three dimensional look -- but I didn't see it.

AUDIO ANALYSIS:
ENGLISH UNCOMPRESSED 5.1; ENGLISH DOLBY DIGITAL 5.1

The audio was another disappointment, too, and again, I am in the minority of reviewers worldwide on this one -- I ignored the Dolby mix and went straight for the Uncompressed LPCM track, and the whole thing, like the video, just left me wanting...first, the audio seems confined to a "chesty," congested stuffing in the front three channels -- very little surround activity makes it into the rears; the sequence where the buried ship blows up towards the beginning from the gun powder being ignited should have been mind-blowing in PCM; it sounded...I don't know...just "off"...when the ship explodes, I did sense debris flying around the soundfield and some "pieces" of the ship landed in the surround channels -- but it was a subtle effect, and it could have been better with more LFE.

Throughout the run time of the film, there just wasn't an exciting immersion in audio -- it seemed like Disney missed the boat on this one. Like I mentioned, there's a "stuffy" quality to the audio that doesn't really take it any real notch above the DVD version's Dolby Digital 5.1 track. Overall, there's a lack of "heft" to this PCM mix, and this, coupled with the video presentation of National Treasure, puts it on the bottom rung of my Blu-ray favorites. It's on the shelf though, because the fiancé likes it...

Discuss away!

HD Goofnut · 08-12-2008, 11:18 AM

I think this is just more evidence that the stuidos need to meet a standard for transferring a movie to HD.

Peter Marlowe · 08-12-2008, 03:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HD Goofnut

I think this is just more evidence that the stuidos need to meet a standard for transferring a movie to HD.

AGREED, Goof...

Did you find the same issues with this disc?

HD Goofnut · 08-12-2008, 03:32 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Peter Marlowe

AGREED, Goof...

Did you find the same issues with this disc?

I watched this back on SD DVD when it came out and didn't much care for it so I stayed away from number two I guess because I am so much into history and the story was too unbelievable. Anyway, I have watched several BDs that are fantastic and then after a scene change, become mediocore at best. The Battle of Britain and The Longest Day come to mind. With The Battle of Britain the closeups of planes and actors are fantastic, but the footage of scenery is extremely soft. The same can be said with The Longest Day, but I felt it look better overall compared to The Battle of Britain.

Peter Marlowe · 08-12-2008, 03:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HD Goofnut

I watched this back on SD DVD when it came out and didn't much care for it so I stayed away from number two I guess because I am so much into history and the story was too unbelievable. Anyway, I have watched several BDs that are fantastic and then after a scene change, become mediocore at best. The Battle of Britain and The Longest Day come to mind. With The Battle of Britain the closeups of planes and actors are fantastic, but the footage of scenery is extremely soft. The same can be said with The Longest Day, but I felt it look better overall compared to The Battle of Britain.

Indeed...

DustyMonkey · 08-12-2008, 05:52 PM

Hey Peter! Glad to see another review from you.

I recently checked this out on BD. I own the sequel on BD and was overall pleased with the video, though I did feel it was rather grainy. This one did look a lot better than the sequel! However, I do have to agree with you on the inconsisent video. It would go from really good to average, and the dark scenes in this one were some of the poorest I've seen. I haven't really seen ANY BDs with dark scenes that look GOOD, but I have seen darker scenes better than this.

Def. better than the sequel, but not one I'd show off my system with!

Peter Marlowe · 08-13-2008, 12:48 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by DustyMonkey

Hey Peter! Glad to see another review from you.

Hey Dusty!

Thanks so much for reading it and responding!

Quote:

I recently checked this out on BD. I own the sequel on BD and was overall pleased with the video, though I did feel it was rather grainy. This one did look a lot better than the sequel!

Yes -- definitely agree there and so did Home Theater's in depth analysis of the video; weird, huh, that the original would look BETTER than a sequel that came out after it?

Quote:

However, I do have to agree with you on the inconsisent video. It would go from really good to average, and the dark scenes in this one were some of the poorest I've seen. I haven't really seen ANY BDs with dark scenes that look GOOD, but I have seen darker scenes better than this.

Absolutely agreed; I was beginning to think that there was something wrong -- seriously wrong with my Panasonic player (that's already outdated by what...three models?) but it makes me feel better to know that others saw the same thing, such as yourself...the video was VERY inconsistent and it was dissapointing from a studio like Disney...

Quote:

Def. better than the sequel, but not one I'd show off my system with!

Yes -- agreed as well, and a BIG head scratcher in that it was such a blockbuster from the Bruckheimer camp who KNOW how to make these loud, visceral over-the-top hits...very surprising this wasn't given better audio and video treatment.

Thanks again for replying!

Peter Marlowe · 08-13-2008, 12:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HD Goofnut

I watched this back on SD DVD when it came out and didn't much care for it so I stayed away from number two I guess because I am so much into history and the story was too unbelievable. Anyway, I have watched several BDs that are fantastic and then after a scene change, become mediocore at best. The Battle of Britain and The Longest Day come to mind. With The Battle of Britain the closeups of planes and actors are fantastic, but the footage of scenery is extremely soft. The same can be said with The Longest Day, but I felt it look better overall compared to The Battle of Britain.

Gotcha...

08-11-2008, 07:41 PM	#1
Peter Marlowe Blu-ray Reviewer Join Date: Jun 2008 Posts: 2,245	My Thoughts on NATIONAL TREASURE (Disney) Let me preface this "little review" by stating that I am a rabid Bruckheimer/Simpson film freak -- as was indicated at the closing credits of The Rock, it was a sad moment when Don Simpson passed away and Jerry Bruckheimer continued on with over-the-top production duties for summer check-your-brain-at-the-door blockbusters...I've loved almost every single one of the projects to come out of the Bruckheimer stable, including Crimson Tide, Gone in 60 Seconds, The Rock, Armageddon, Bad Boys/Bad Boys II, Pirates of the Caribbean and many others. The plots are so far-fetched and there are logic and reality holes in the screenplays so large you can send a Boeing 747 through them, but they're just plain fun and usually make for awesome home theater experiences from Disney's division that handles these duties, Buena Vista. But I was surprised when Bruckheimer-produced National Treasure came along because I just didn't get the same feeling about this one like I did when sitting down to watch, say, Armageddon or Bad Boys...something was just missing here; I don't know if it was the ridiculously absurd plot or the way the Declaration of Independence was stolen "just so easily" or the chemistry that wasn't there between Nick Cage and his supporting cast like it was between him and Sean Connery in The Rock or the lack of "hectic energy" directors like Michael Bay bring to the collaboration films with him and Bruckheimer...I just don't know. And it's not that I'm not into films dealing with these matters -- I love the Mummy series; but the first National Treasure and especially its sequel are just too much for their own good with way, way too much going on from one scene to the next to, at times, even follow what the characters are talking about. The film runs a tick over two hours, but it really does feel more like three by the time you're done. While Stephen Sommers' The Mummy gets twisty and too deep for its own good as well at points, there's something about those films that were more enjoyable to me than the two American history-meets-Indiana Jones films Bruckheimer produced. Yet, my better half enjoyed the National Treasures more than I, especially the first one, and it ended up on her Blu-ray want list. It arrived yesterday, via Amazon, and we sat down to watch it in 1080p and with uncompressed PCM audio. The plot, as you all well know, revolves around Nick Cage's character named Benjamin Gates, who supposedly holds a secret about a family legacy which tells of a massive treasure somehow linked to deep American history; the film opens with a young Gates being told a story by his grandfather (a waste of a role by the great Christopher Plummer) about some kind of "Knights Templar" who may have held the secret to this treasure...Gates grows up to take some treasure hunters looking for a ship that was buried near the Arctic Circle for more clues to this treasure. The best performance here may be from the film's "bad guy" played by Sean Bean (The Hitcher remake) who definitely made a better "villain" than Ed Harris did in the sequel; Bean and his men want the clues to the treasure for themselves, and the rest of the film concentrates on Bean searching for Cage and his sidekick who plot to steal the Declaration of Independence because there's an invisible map on the back of it that can lead them to the treasure. The trip gets tiresome after awhile, and one ridiculous clue leads to another as Cage and Bean go from Washington to New York to look under an old church for more clues to the treasure, with Bean eventually heading to Boston on a wild goose chase Cage sets him on. Did anyone else wonder how these groups of people could simply get to all these different destinations in so little time with no hassles? Along the way, we get guest appearances by Harvey Keitel, who plays the lead FBI agent tracking Cage (and later, Bean) because he's in possession of the stolen Declaration; my question is, can anyone take someone serious who actually wears a denim button down shirt and tie with a plaid jacket over it, as Keitel’s character does? What's the deal with that? Anyway, we also get a performance by Jon Voight who plays Ben Gates' father, but most of the time he's running around in a plaid robe and glasses being told to "shut up" by the villains. The main gripe I actually had with the whole thing revolves around Disney's Blu-ray presentation of this title, which I'll get to now... *VIDEO ANALYSIS:* 1080p HIGH DEFINITION WIDESCREEN TRANSFER; 2.35:1 This was a mixed bag; now, Home Theater magazine had done a complete review of the sequel on Blu-ray and they said the original actually looked AND sounded better than that one...they claimed there was some "unnatural, added edge enhancement" that spoiled the transfer of the sequel. That doesn't seem to be the problem here, but I still wasn't that impressed...grain doesn't seem to be the issue, but there was something soft and not right about this transfer -- and that's not the norm for Disney's BD stable. Some shots look great -- such as skin definition and details on certain closeups of characters -- but then the transfer, in a very next scene, will lose resolution and become "DVD-looking flat" again; this goes back and forth for the run of the film. Darker, dimly-lit sequences suffer from that "twitchy dithering and noise" that plagues almost every high def disc since the format's launch, and dim scenes in particular suffer from that excessive softness I was talking about...when Cage and crew are talking and looking at maps and clues in dimly lit corridors and rooms, the image loses any sense of high definition and simply goes "flat"...now I know almost every other reviewer has given this title very high marks for the video and have described it as having an almost three dimensional look -- but I didn't see it. *AUDIO ANALYSIS:* ENGLISH UNCOMPRESSED 5.1; ENGLISH DOLBY DIGITAL 5.1 The audio was another disappointment, too, and again, I am in the minority of reviewers worldwide on this one -- I ignored the Dolby mix and went straight for the Uncompressed LPCM track, and the whole thing, like the video, just left me wanting...first, the audio seems confined to a "chesty," congested stuffing in the front three channels -- very little surround activity makes it into the rears; the sequence where the buried ship blows up towards the beginning from the gun powder being ignited should have been mind-blowing in PCM; it sounded...I don't know...just "off"...when the ship explodes, I did sense debris flying around the soundfield and some "pieces" of the ship landed in the surround channels -- but it was a subtle effect, and it could have been better with more LFE. Throughout the run time of the film, there just wasn't an exciting immersion in audio -- it seemed like Disney missed the boat on this one. Like I mentioned, there's a "stuffy" quality to the audio that doesn't really take it any real notch above the DVD version's Dolby Digital 5.1 track. Overall, there's a lack of "heft" to this PCM mix, and this, coupled with the video presentation of National Treasure, puts it on the bottom rung of my Blu-ray favorites. It's on the shelf though, because the fiancé likes it... Discuss away! __________________ ONKYO TX-SR605B HDMI 1.3a; Onboard Dolby Digital Plus/TrueHD, DTS-HD Master Audio Panasonic DMP-BD10A SONY 1080p KDS-50A2020 SXRD Mains: polkaudio R20 Center: polkaudio CSi30 Surrounds: polkaudio R15 Sub: polkaudio PSW10 Also in the rack: marantz CC4001 TASCAM CD-RW900SL PROFESSIONAL Technics SL-QD33 (due for replacement) APC SurgeArrest System INTERCONNECTS & SPEAKER CABLING BY MONSTER Last Review: Last edited by Peter Marlowe; 08-11-2008 at 07:47 PM.

08-12-2008, 11:18 AM	#2
HD Goofnut HDF Official Reviewer Join Date: Dec 2007 Location: Mississippi, U.S.A. Your resident Dune, Star Wars, and war film expert Age: 27 Posts: 6,762	I think this is just more evidence that the stuidos need to meet a standard for transferring a movie to HD. __________________ Official High Def Forum Reviewer Have a review request? Send it to me. Display: Sanyo DP46848 46" 1080p LCD A/V Receiver: Onkyo TX-SR606 7.1 HD Receiver: DirecTV HR21-100 HD DVR Speakers: Onkyo SKS-HT540 7.1 System Players: LG BH200, Toshiba HD-A20 & A2, Sony 40 GB PS3, Magnavox NB500MG9 156~199~My Movie Collection~Latest Bought: Death Race & The International Latest Review: *Role Models*

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08-12-2008, 05:52 PM	#6
DustyMonkey Blu Addict Join Date: Apr 2008 Location: Michigan Age: 25 Posts: 78	Hey Peter! Glad to see another review from you. I recently checked this out on BD. I own the sequel on BD and was overall pleased with the video, though I did feel it was rather grainy. This one did look a lot better than the sequel! However, I do have to agree with you on the inconsisent video. It would go from really good to average, and the dark scenes in this one were some of the poorest I've seen. I haven't really seen ANY BDs with dark scenes that look GOOD, but I have seen darker scenes better than this. Def. better than the sequel, but not one I'd show off my system with!