British The Full Monty star nm2561483 autoTom Wilkinson[/link] will portray American historical leader Benjamin Franklin in new U.S. TV miniseries nm0011077 autoJohn Adams[/link].
- 1/2/2008
- WENN
National Treasure: Book of Secrets, the but-of-course sequel to the 2004 Jerry Bruckheimer Films/Jon Turteltaub blockbuster National Treasure, is a letdown. It contains all the elements from the original film, which was a kind of Da Vinci Code on steroids crossed, rather charmingly, with American History Trivial Pursuit. But that's the problem: It's virtually the same movie with new locations. Oh, plus Helen Mirren. Not a bad addition, but the popcorn fun is gone.
Not that it will matter. Industry trackers insist those surefire boxoffice elements will propel Book of Secrets to an even higher international gross than the original's $347.5 million.
The film jets from one major historical monument of Western civilization to another with Nicolas Cage's Benjamin Franklin Gates racing against time to solve an ancient puzzle for essentially no real reason. This yields well-photographed tourist sites, several cliff-hanging sequences -- a few literally that -- and a capable returning cast playing now-familiar roles in an action-fantasy.
Yes, action-fantasy is all you can call a film that abandons any semblance of reality. Take a major set piece: If you are going to stage a slam-bang chase sequence with cars smashing aside all objects, inanimate or human, guns blazing and no care for life or limb, the one city where this will not work is London: 9/11 cameras are everywhere on its tiny, pedestrian-choked streets and lanes, and security is the most stringent in Europe. Yet director Turteltaub stages a sequence that tries to outdo Bullitt, The French Connection and all the Bourne movies combined in the heart of London without a single bobby showing up. Right.
The story, more a blueprint for stunts than a coherent tale, was cobbled together by the husband-wife team of Marianne and Cormac Wibberley with the story credit divided among the Wibberleys, Gregory Poirier, Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio. The central notion, derived from the original National Treasure, is that those dastardly Masons buried secret codes and puzzles -- treasure maps, as it were -- into major American documents, monuments and even furniture. Only Cage's Ben Gates can penetrate their secrets.
This one centers on the assassination of President Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth. Wouldn't you know a Gates ancestor named Thomas was at the center of the action on April 14, 1865, and that the assassination was really about treasure maps and Mason secrets rather than the most heinous criminal act in American history.
Since a new piece of evidence brought forward by Ed Harris' rather suspicious Mitch Wilkinson appears to implicate poor Thomas Gates in the assassination, this is cause alone for Ben to spring into action. Which in turns ignites the burners of Jon Voight as Ben's eminent (though technologically challenged) professor-father Patrick; Mirren as his mom, who for plot convenience can translate ancient Indian texts; Diane Kruger as ex-girlfriend Abigail, who for plot convenience happens to be a history archivist; Justin Bartha's Riley, a techno-whiz who can break into any place, no problem; and Harvey Keitel as the FBI agent who cannot decide whether to arrest Ben or pin a medal on him.
The story requires Ben and company to jet to Paris to examine a Statue of Liberty replica in the Luxembourg Gardens, break into Buckingham Palace, then the White House Oval Office, kidnap the president (Bruce Greenwood), ransack the Library of Congress and finally discover an American Indian archeological site implausibly located under Mount Rushmore. Here much of the cast -- in a repeat of the earlier film's climax in catacombs beneath Manhattan -- hang from decaying ladders and dodge falling debris in an underground space the size of the Grand Canyon.
But the thrill is gone as everyone is slavishly following an action memo dictated by marketing concerns and boxoffice demographics rather than cinematic invention. No credible reason is ever given for the huge race. There is no ticking clock here other than Mitch and his goons being hot on Ben's trail, again for no logical reason. Family honor is one thing, but are you really going to destroy half of London and kidnap the American president over that?
Tech credits are polished.
NATIONAL TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films present
a Junction Entertainment production
in association with Saturn Films
Credits:
Director: Jon Turteltaub
Screenwriters: The Wibberleys
Story by: Gregory Poirier, the Wibberleys, Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio
Producers: Jerry Bruckheimer, Jon Turteltaub
Executive producers: Mike Stenson, Chad Oman, Barry Waldman, Oren Aviv, Charles Segars
Directors of photography: John Schwartzman, Amir Mokri
Production designer: Dominic Watkins
Music: Trevor Rabin
Costume designer: Judianna Makovsky
Editors: William Goldenberg, David Rennie
Cast:
Ben Gates: Nicolas Cage
Riley Poole: Justin Bartha
Abigail Chase: Diane Kruger
Patrick Gates: Jon Voight
Emily: Helen Mirren
Mitch: Ed Harris: Sadusky: Harvey Keitel
President: Bruce Greenwood
Running time -- 123 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
Not that it will matter. Industry trackers insist those surefire boxoffice elements will propel Book of Secrets to an even higher international gross than the original's $347.5 million.
The film jets from one major historical monument of Western civilization to another with Nicolas Cage's Benjamin Franklin Gates racing against time to solve an ancient puzzle for essentially no real reason. This yields well-photographed tourist sites, several cliff-hanging sequences -- a few literally that -- and a capable returning cast playing now-familiar roles in an action-fantasy.
Yes, action-fantasy is all you can call a film that abandons any semblance of reality. Take a major set piece: If you are going to stage a slam-bang chase sequence with cars smashing aside all objects, inanimate or human, guns blazing and no care for life or limb, the one city where this will not work is London: 9/11 cameras are everywhere on its tiny, pedestrian-choked streets and lanes, and security is the most stringent in Europe. Yet director Turteltaub stages a sequence that tries to outdo Bullitt, The French Connection and all the Bourne movies combined in the heart of London without a single bobby showing up. Right.
The story, more a blueprint for stunts than a coherent tale, was cobbled together by the husband-wife team of Marianne and Cormac Wibberley with the story credit divided among the Wibberleys, Gregory Poirier, Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio. The central notion, derived from the original National Treasure, is that those dastardly Masons buried secret codes and puzzles -- treasure maps, as it were -- into major American documents, monuments and even furniture. Only Cage's Ben Gates can penetrate their secrets.
This one centers on the assassination of President Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth. Wouldn't you know a Gates ancestor named Thomas was at the center of the action on April 14, 1865, and that the assassination was really about treasure maps and Mason secrets rather than the most heinous criminal act in American history.
Since a new piece of evidence brought forward by Ed Harris' rather suspicious Mitch Wilkinson appears to implicate poor Thomas Gates in the assassination, this is cause alone for Ben to spring into action. Which in turns ignites the burners of Jon Voight as Ben's eminent (though technologically challenged) professor-father Patrick; Mirren as his mom, who for plot convenience can translate ancient Indian texts; Diane Kruger as ex-girlfriend Abigail, who for plot convenience happens to be a history archivist; Justin Bartha's Riley, a techno-whiz who can break into any place, no problem; and Harvey Keitel as the FBI agent who cannot decide whether to arrest Ben or pin a medal on him.
The story requires Ben and company to jet to Paris to examine a Statue of Liberty replica in the Luxembourg Gardens, break into Buckingham Palace, then the White House Oval Office, kidnap the president (Bruce Greenwood), ransack the Library of Congress and finally discover an American Indian archeological site implausibly located under Mount Rushmore. Here much of the cast -- in a repeat of the earlier film's climax in catacombs beneath Manhattan -- hang from decaying ladders and dodge falling debris in an underground space the size of the Grand Canyon.
But the thrill is gone as everyone is slavishly following an action memo dictated by marketing concerns and boxoffice demographics rather than cinematic invention. No credible reason is ever given for the huge race. There is no ticking clock here other than Mitch and his goons being hot on Ben's trail, again for no logical reason. Family honor is one thing, but are you really going to destroy half of London and kidnap the American president over that?
Tech credits are polished.
NATIONAL TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS
Walt Disney Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures and Jerry Bruckheimer Films present
a Junction Entertainment production
in association with Saturn Films
Credits:
Director: Jon Turteltaub
Screenwriters: The Wibberleys
Story by: Gregory Poirier, the Wibberleys, Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio
Producers: Jerry Bruckheimer, Jon Turteltaub
Executive producers: Mike Stenson, Chad Oman, Barry Waldman, Oren Aviv, Charles Segars
Directors of photography: John Schwartzman, Amir Mokri
Production designer: Dominic Watkins
Music: Trevor Rabin
Costume designer: Judianna Makovsky
Editors: William Goldenberg, David Rennie
Cast:
Ben Gates: Nicolas Cage
Riley Poole: Justin Bartha
Abigail Chase: Diane Kruger
Patrick Gates: Jon Voight
Emily: Helen Mirren
Mitch: Ed Harris: Sadusky: Harvey Keitel
President: Bruce Greenwood
Running time -- 123 minutes
MPAA rating: PG...
- 12/21/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Oscar-nominated actor Tom Wilkinson has been tapped to play Benjamin Franklin and David Morse is set to play George Washington in the HBO Films miniseries John Adams, which is slated to premiere in 2008.
The Playtone-produced seven-hour miniseries is a biography of Adams (Paul Giamatti), the American founding father and the second U.S. president, told through the eyes of his wife, Abigail Adams (Laura Linney). Based on David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, the mini will chronicle the first 50 years of the American republic.
Wilkinson and Morse join the previously cast Stephen Dillane as Thomas Jefferson, Danny Huston as Samuel Adams, Rufus Sewell as Alexander Hamilton, Justin Theroux as John Hancock and Guy Henry as Jonathan Sewall.
Production on the mini, written and co-executive produced by Kirk Ellis, is scheduled to begin shortly, with most of the production to film in Colonial Williamsburg, Va. Tom Hooper is directing, with Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman executive producing.
The Playtone-produced seven-hour miniseries is a biography of Adams (Paul Giamatti), the American founding father and the second U.S. president, told through the eyes of his wife, Abigail Adams (Laura Linney). Based on David McCullough's Pulitzer Prize-winning biography, the mini will chronicle the first 50 years of the American republic.
Wilkinson and Morse join the previously cast Stephen Dillane as Thomas Jefferson, Danny Huston as Samuel Adams, Rufus Sewell as Alexander Hamilton, Justin Theroux as John Hancock and Guy Henry as Jonathan Sewall.
Production on the mini, written and co-executive produced by Kirk Ellis, is scheduled to begin shortly, with most of the production to film in Colonial Williamsburg, Va. Tom Hooper is directing, with Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman executive producing.
- 3/22/2007
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
If you're going to tell a wildly implausible tale of fortune hunting and unlikely heroes, you could do worse than "National Treasure". Mind you, there is not a single moment in the movie that isn't complete nonsense. But with a script decked out with fascinating historical tidbits from the American Revolution and Masonic lore, set pieces in and around numerous East Coast monuments and historical buildings and a tongue thrust firmly in cheek, "National Treasure" is an above-average popcorn movie.
Starring Nicolas Cage and directed by Jon Turteltaub with more of an eye toward comedy and character byplay than is usual for a Jerry Bruckheimer production, the movie relies less on action than mystery and suspense. Other than the use of historical locations rarely seen onscreen, the movie is instantly forgettable. Yet it should make a pleasant diversion during the holiday season and could give the Walt Disney Co. a much needed respite from a truly unmemorable year at the boxoffice.
The story and script by five writers (assisted by even more uncredited scribes) imagines an American family named Gates has been cursed since post-Revolutionary times by the secret knowledge that the United States of America harbors the legendary Knights Templar treasure, handed down from the Crusaders to other grave robbers and thieves until it found its way to the rebel colonies.
It falls to the current Gates family member named Ben (Cage) -- that's Benjamin Franklin Gates, if you will -- to discover that a treasure map of sorts exists on the back of the Declaration of Independence. Look, if you don't mind being ridiculous, why not? Watch for the next Bruckheimer movie in which the Magna Carta offers clues to the hideout of space aliens.
The heist of America's most prized historical document and the hunt for the treasure finds various dogs nipping at Ben's heels. A group of baddies headed by Sean Bean will stop at nothing to claim the treasure. An FBI team lead by Harvey Keitel is desperate to nab America's most-wanted thief. Ben can only rely on his trusted tech wizard Justin Bartha, National Archives conservator Diane Kruger and, later, must ask his reluctant and disparaging dad, Jon Voight, for help.
The chase leads from an old ship frozen in the Arctic wilderness to the National Archive, Library of Congress and other monuments in Washington, D.C., then on to the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall in Philadelphia and Trinity Church in Wall Street and catacombs beneath Manhattan. Clues come from objects ranging from a Meershaum pipe to a $100 bill.
The production hits on all cylinders from start to finish with Caleb Deschnel's crisp cinematography and Norris Spencer's design opening up marvelous spaces for the characters to rush through while Trevor Rabin's insistent music urges the action on. Unfortunately, the third act settles for conventional hokum involving collapsing wooden stairways and Indiana Jones archeological tricks that betray the wit and cleverness of the earlier sequences.
Similarly, Cage's character, that of a nerdy, obsessive conspiracy theorist who is actually right, show more promise in the early going than he later delivers. Only Bartha and Voight have actual characters to play while Kruger supplies energy and beauty but in a role not fully fleshed out by the many writers.
NATIONAL TREASURE
Buena Vista Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures in association with Jerry Bruckheimer Films
Credits:
Director: Jon Turteltaub
Writers: Jim Kouf, Marianne Wibberley, Cormaca Wibberley
Story by: Jim Kouf, Oren Aviv, Charles Segars
Producers: Jerry Bruckheimer, Jon Turteltaub
Executive producers: Mike Stenson, Chad Oman, Christina Steinberg, Barry Waldmana, Oren Aviv, Charles Segars
Director of photography: Caleb Deschanel
Production designer: Norris Spencer
Music: Trevor Rabin
Costumes: Judianna Makovsky
Editor: William Goldenberg
Cast:
Ben Gates: Nicolas Cage
Sadusky: Harvey Keitel
Patrick Gates: Jon Voight
Abigail Chase: Diane Kruger
Ian Howe: Sean Bean
Riley: Justin Bartha
John Adams Gates: Christopher Plummer
MPAA rating PG
Running time -- 130 minutes...
Starring Nicolas Cage and directed by Jon Turteltaub with more of an eye toward comedy and character byplay than is usual for a Jerry Bruckheimer production, the movie relies less on action than mystery and suspense. Other than the use of historical locations rarely seen onscreen, the movie is instantly forgettable. Yet it should make a pleasant diversion during the holiday season and could give the Walt Disney Co. a much needed respite from a truly unmemorable year at the boxoffice.
The story and script by five writers (assisted by even more uncredited scribes) imagines an American family named Gates has been cursed since post-Revolutionary times by the secret knowledge that the United States of America harbors the legendary Knights Templar treasure, handed down from the Crusaders to other grave robbers and thieves until it found its way to the rebel colonies.
It falls to the current Gates family member named Ben (Cage) -- that's Benjamin Franklin Gates, if you will -- to discover that a treasure map of sorts exists on the back of the Declaration of Independence. Look, if you don't mind being ridiculous, why not? Watch for the next Bruckheimer movie in which the Magna Carta offers clues to the hideout of space aliens.
The heist of America's most prized historical document and the hunt for the treasure finds various dogs nipping at Ben's heels. A group of baddies headed by Sean Bean will stop at nothing to claim the treasure. An FBI team lead by Harvey Keitel is desperate to nab America's most-wanted thief. Ben can only rely on his trusted tech wizard Justin Bartha, National Archives conservator Diane Kruger and, later, must ask his reluctant and disparaging dad, Jon Voight, for help.
The chase leads from an old ship frozen in the Arctic wilderness to the National Archive, Library of Congress and other monuments in Washington, D.C., then on to the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall in Philadelphia and Trinity Church in Wall Street and catacombs beneath Manhattan. Clues come from objects ranging from a Meershaum pipe to a $100 bill.
The production hits on all cylinders from start to finish with Caleb Deschnel's crisp cinematography and Norris Spencer's design opening up marvelous spaces for the characters to rush through while Trevor Rabin's insistent music urges the action on. Unfortunately, the third act settles for conventional hokum involving collapsing wooden stairways and Indiana Jones archeological tricks that betray the wit and cleverness of the earlier sequences.
Similarly, Cage's character, that of a nerdy, obsessive conspiracy theorist who is actually right, show more promise in the early going than he later delivers. Only Bartha and Voight have actual characters to play while Kruger supplies energy and beauty but in a role not fully fleshed out by the many writers.
NATIONAL TREASURE
Buena Vista Pictures
Walt Disney Pictures in association with Jerry Bruckheimer Films
Credits:
Director: Jon Turteltaub
Writers: Jim Kouf, Marianne Wibberley, Cormaca Wibberley
Story by: Jim Kouf, Oren Aviv, Charles Segars
Producers: Jerry Bruckheimer, Jon Turteltaub
Executive producers: Mike Stenson, Chad Oman, Christina Steinberg, Barry Waldmana, Oren Aviv, Charles Segars
Director of photography: Caleb Deschanel
Production designer: Norris Spencer
Music: Trevor Rabin
Costumes: Judianna Makovsky
Editor: William Goldenberg
Cast:
Ben Gates: Nicolas Cage
Sadusky: Harvey Keitel
Patrick Gates: Jon Voight
Abigail Chase: Diane Kruger
Ian Howe: Sean Bean
Riley: Justin Bartha
John Adams Gates: Christopher Plummer
MPAA rating PG
Running time -- 130 minutes...
- 12/10/2004
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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