National Treasure 2, the best two hour commercial ever

Typically in movies, the special effects or a completely ridiculous chain of events will “take you out” of the movie, the point where you sort of snap out of the trance you’ve been in and go, “what the hell?” It’s the point where you almost lose all faith in the movie. With exception to comedy movies, this is usually the Achilles heel of movies. It’s hard to not have it happen at some point in the film, and when it doesn’t happen you know it’s a great movie.

National Treasure 2 is not one of those great films. Now, National Treasure isn’t meant to be great high drama. It’s a fun action/adventure movie. Frankly, this sequel is not as good as the first, but I can count the number of sequels that were better their prequel on one hand. Although to the picture’s credit, it wasn’t the special effects or even the crazy plot points that took me out of the movie - it was the product placement.

Product placement is far from new, but we’re seeing it more as people watch movies on-line, off DVR, and play more video games. Sometimes you don’t even realize it’s product placement, which is good. When movies take place in Times Square, you are less apt to notice ads because it’s within context of the scene. Films like Transformers take it just a wee step further by showing you a Chevrolet logo every 10 minutes…but even that I could get past, after all, the robots needed to be some sort of car, right?

National Treasure is the first movie in recent memory (and possibly ever) that actually broke my suspension of disbelief because of the number of blatant product placements. There were so many unsubtle placements that it literally took me out of the moment to go “wow, could you be any more obvious?” Maybe I’ve just been watching movies too long and now go into a movie entirely differently than I did even five years ago. But even then, here’s a movie that I’ve never seen before, opening night, and the lasting memory in my mind are the products…?

The advertisers are high-fiving each other right now. If anything, this article is proof that product placement (kinda) works.

But as a movie-goer and avid film fan, if this is the future of movies then I can tell you now the number of movies I see at the box office will be even fewer than I see now, which is 99% fewer than I saw just three years ago. A side note, that I discovered the student price for a ticket is now $8. Wow. There’s reason #1 why we see less films now than before.

To help prove that the product placement worked and that movies are officially heading down the tubes quicker than ever, here is a short list of products/advertisers I remember from the film.

• Apple, all you need is a Macbook and iPod to hack the government
• Mercedes, everyone drives Mercedes, right?
• Aquafina, the official water of treasure hunters
• Dell, when a laptop won’t cut it
• Microsoft, because MSN is the only web site on the internet

There was also a great car chase in which a beer truck was used. I didn’t recognize the brand because it was European, but placement all the same. Oh, and Ferrari is in there too, but I consider that less product placement because does Ferrari really need to advertise? The car was there to tie in the previous film more than anything.

So next time you head out for a night at the movies, don’t be surprised if afterwards you have this overwhelming urge to test drive a Mercedes while enjoying a Pepsi. Of course, while I noticed these products and brands, I’m not really motivated to buy their products. Yes, it gets them exposure, but if anything it almost makes me less likely to buy their stuff because they made me mad by interrupting my movie. Asses.