National Treasure is. . .

another Nicolas Cage-based crapfest that I can't stop watching. As a matter of fact, I am watching it right now while eating sweet potatoes and typing this. I am a sweet multi-tasker like that.

The premise of this movie is pretty cool, although it's a lot like The Da Vinci Code if you Americanized it. I am not sure which one came first, since that would require looking it up. One of them probably ripped off the idea from the other though. Maybe Dan Brown wrote the screenplay for National Treasure?

Much like Gone In 60 Seconds, National Treasure suffers from some terrible dialogue. Nicolas Cage's thinking monologue at the beginning while they are on that ship? Awful. The conversation in the back of the van after Nicolas Cage rescues the girl who might be German from the bad guys? Just painful. The forced sexual tension when they are trying to find the secret key on the back of the Declaration? Awkward. But not the awkward it is going for. The conversation between Jon Voight and Harvey Keitel? I usually change the channel and hope to make it back before the part where the guy who plays Doug in The Hangover says that the car smells funny. That makes me laugh every time for some reason.

The other problem is that this is a two-hour or so movie, and it's always at least 3 hours long on TV with an excessive number of commercials. It's like a 50-50 split between movie and commercial. What's worse is that this is that awkward time of day when there is absolutely nothing else on, so I have to fill the time by writing snarky blog posts and pretending to come up with lesson plans for the week.

Also, there was just a commercial on for the Cancer Treatment Centers of America, and a guy who is supposed to be a cancer survivor is telling his "story" about how he was diagnosed with cancer, and the doctor supposedly says to him "What are you smiling about? You've got 6 months to live." I don't believe this guy. I just can't do it. If a doctor said that to someone, and the story doesn't continue with the doctor getting sued or punched in the nose, then it's not a real story. With my health track record, I have been to a lot of doctors, and none of them, even the jerky ones, have even come close to saying something that asshole-y. Sorry, guy, I'm not buying it. Glad you survived though!

-Jon