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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cthulhudrew" data-source="post: 1815181" data-attributes="member: 4090">Got a pass to a free screening today, and got back a couple of hours ago.I enjoyed it quite a bit. Screenplay by Ted Elliot and Terry Rossio, the writers of "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Shrek", as well as numerous other movies (they did the original screenplay of Godzilla, though it was later rewritten entirely when Emmerich came onboard as director.) Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer, and starring Nicholas Cage, Jon Voight, Harvey Keitel, Diane Kruger, and one of my favorite actors, Sean Bean.It was fun and clever. I love a good historical fiction yarn, and though this doesn't really qualify, there were enough tidbits of actual history and legend that formed the basis of the story that I got quite a bit of enjoyment out of it. It really is pretty smart about how it weaves together many apocryphal and conspiratorial stories about the founding fathers and the masons and similar "cult"-ish groups, such as the Knights Templar. A pretty good mystery, although there is a little bit of hand-leading from time to time (particularly in the beginning of the story, where Nicholas Cage's character Ben Gates sadly falls victim to the error of telling the audience what the camera is already plainly showing to us. I half-suspect that was from a later rewrite, as in my experience the duo of Ted and Terry are pretty good about using the medium of film effectively.)Ben's sidekick, Riley (played by Justin Bartha) started out a bit annoying (at least, both my friend and I thought so), but he quickly grew on us and was a welcome addition to the cast. I might even go so far as to rank him in the recent "Best Sidekick" category. Diane Kruger as Abigail Chase was fine- she didn't have much to do other than look exasperated and form a quick movie romantic attachment to Ben- but for all that she turned in a pleasant performance and certainly didn't detract from the movie. Jon Voight (as Ben's father) was nice comic relief- though there were some echoes of Sean Connery's "Henry Jones" in the character. Sean Bean turned in a fine performance as Ian Howe, though his character was rather underdeveloped and underused. His best scenes were at the beginning, in his interactions with Ben Gates.As for the plot, well, it was quite far-fetched at times, for instance when- and I don't think I'm giving anything away here, since it's in all the trailers, but I'll still include spoilers- [Spoiler]Ben, Riley, and Ian all try to steal the Declaration of Independence.[/Spoiler] Far-fetched, but pulled off in a rather charming way. That's the way most of the set pieces go, but as long as you can keep your suspension of disbelief in check, it's a fun ride. Fairly fast-paced, too- particularly the beginning (it gets right into the plot), but I felt it dragged a little bit at the end. As my friend pointed out, it's a Bruckheimer movie, so it's long- clocked in at 2 hours 10 minutes.Aside from some backstory in the very beginning, the movie deals almost exclusively with early American history, and it treats it in a fun manner in which I haven't seen done in a while, which is always a plus. I know that I've only recently gotten to become interested in American history again, and I think (for some reason) that in school nowadays it is just sucked dry of any interest, such that history of anywhere else seems so much more exciting by contrast. So, again, this was a refreshing change from that. Of course, I think this movie has special resonance if you've been to the memorials that are visited in the piece- I was born near the capitol, and finally revisited Washington, DC a little more than a year ago, so it was really interesting seeing those sites that were so fresh in my mind.I was planning on seeing this in the theatres before this anyway, but I'm glad I got to see it for free! I'd still recommend it, it was a pleasant and enjoyable experience.</blockquote>

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