starring Diane Kruger, Ed Harris, Harvey Keitel, Helen Mirren, Jon Voight, Nicolas Cage (add more)
Comments made in brackets are corrections from other visitors. As such, any aggressive/abusive corrections (and I get quite a few) written as if they're comments I've made myself will be ignored. To submit your own corrections for mistakes, just click the edit icon under an entry, then choose "correct entry". Some entries have "duplicated entry" after them - these are entries which were already listed on the main page, but were submitted again. I occasionally leave these online for a while, just in case they were moved in error, so don't worry about pointing them out to me.
In the scene when everyone is moving the wheel so to close the (gates which would eventually stop the water) there in one scene the lamp is on the wheel which is being turned and in the other scene when a top angle shot of the wheel is taken it is not there. [This is not true the oil lamp does not move it is there in the top view it is just more difficult to see.]
In the end of the movie when Riley walks along the sidewalk there are no cars there. When he backs up in his returned car, he crashes into something. It is highly un-likely that he backed up over the curb. [There's at least one car parked behind (plus another in front) of his car. The car behind him is what he hits.]
When they are in the room that is filling with water, Mitch says that he will go first and if anyone else does, they will stop and go through it all again. However, in the next shot he is holding the door open while everyone else goes through. [Realizing he can't get out (there's no way for him to get any of the others back to hold the wheel for him) Mitch has a change of heart at the end and chooses to save them.]
Nicolas Cage and his friends were viewing a digital photo of their speeding offence pretty much immediately when they had access to a laptop. This is only possible when the image is sent from the camera through transmission. UK speed cameras use old photo reels to prevent fraudlant offences, so there is absolutely no way for them to see the photo. [Digital speed cameras have been in use in UK since at least 2005. Otherwise the Average Speed restrictions would be difficult to enforce.]
Considering that the Olmec civilization was confined to southern Mexico, it would not have been able to construct a gigantic gold city in South Dakota. [It is extremely unlikely, but we cannot assume it was impossible. Who really knows what happened hundreds of years ago, or what the ancient cultures were capable of? With their primitive technology they were able to construct massive pyramids. It would not stretch the imagination to think that they could transport gold through (what was then) the wilderness of ancient America to start a new society.]
Near the end, inside the treasure chamber before the water rushes back in, Dr. Appleton is standing next to the sacrificial platform and runs her finger through a series of Olmec characters and says, "This will give an incredible insight of pre-Columbian history." Among those sets of characters showing, only the first two are heliograph characters. The next two sets of 3 each are all ancient Chinese Seal Script characters. [The messages are in Chinese because it's like the Rosetta Stone, saying something in one language and then saying the exact same thing in a different language.]
Towards the end of the movie, when they are in the City of Gold and they see Ben Gate's parents, Ben yells out, "Helen, we found it" instead of the character's name, Emily. [It doesn't make sense that Ben would call his mother by either name, since he refers to her as "mom." He said "Here, we found it!"]
Gates' ending remarks at the conference referencing the South not only being able to continue the war, but win it with a new financial source, is complete bushwa. Once Lee had surrendered, his men were more than happy to go home to their families. What would the rebels do, buy mercenaries? [If the soldiers getting paid vast amounts of money to continue fighting makes them mercenaries, then yes, the rebels would do precisely that.]
Corrected by Phixius
In the movie, it says the famous Spanish explorer, Cabaza de Vaca shipwrecked near Florida. This is false because Cabaza de Vaca's ship actually crashed near Galveston, Texas. [Cabeza de Vaca actually landed in Florida first. He and his crew were at constant odds with the local Native Americans. They built crude rafts in an effort to escape and then shipwrecked near Galveston.]
After the visit to the Oval Office, Riley claims that the information about the "Secret Book" was released in 1966 under the "Freedom Of Information" Act. While it's true Johnson signed the act in 1966, it did not go into effect until the following year. [Character mistake. Even though he appears to know a lot about the subject, it's possible for someone to forget the exact year it all went down.]
In the scene where the cast discovers the underground cave and goes to turn the wheel to stop the water from pouring in, in one shot Ben is holding the flare, then shortly after in another shot, Riley is holding the flare, and shortly after that, the flare is gone completely. [Ben hands the flare to Riley before he is seen turning the wheel. The flare was likely extinguished by the water, or burned out and Riley discarded it. No sense hanging on to a burned out flare.]
In the later part of the chase scene after Buckingham Palace, check out the front passenger-side tire of the SUV Mitch is riding in. Right around the time that the cars are on the bridge, you can see in some frames that sparks are flying from it as if the rim is dragging on the ground. Other times there are no sparks at all. This switches back and forth several times during the chase. [The SUV is driving on the rim, as the tire is flat during all of the scenes on the bridge. The reason you sometimes see sparks, and sometimes not, is that sometimes the bare rim is on pavement, other times, when the wheel is turned the other direction, it is sliding on the rubber that is still on the rim. The tire is completely flat, but has not yet shredded completely off the rim. The behaviour of the vehicle and sparking is consistent with a flat tire of that magnitude.]
When Ben is trying to find the 4 digit code for the Resolute desk in Buckingham Palace, the first code he tries doesn't work. When he tries a different second code, and the first two numbers are the same (1 and 8), yet Ben opens the draws again as if they have not been moved. [He had to close them to reset the mechanism, just like you have to do with any combination lock.]
Corrected by wizard_of_gore
History "genius" Ben Gates incorrectly states the phrase "his name is mud" originated from Dr. Sammuel Mudd, who was convicted and later pardoned in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The phrase has its earliest known recorded instance in 1823, 10 years before Mudd's birth, and is in fact based an obsolete sense of the word 'mud' meaning 'a stupid twaddling fellow'. [While your description of the term "mud" is correct(although based on a quick Google search), Ben's account of the origin of the phrase "His name is Mudd" is absolutely correct.]
When Ben Gates takes the photo of the plank of wood in the President's book, the photo has been taken and stored on his phone previously, as at the bottom of the phone, it says 'View' and 'Options' rather than 'Capture'. [My phone says "options" and "exit" when in camera mode. The photo is taken by pressing the menu button and then says "options" and "back". At no stage does it say "capture"]
The inscription on the Statue of Liberty in Paris was not hidden, and easily obtainable with an internet search or a few minutes of research in a library. There was no need to use the remote control helicopter and camera. [Even if there was no need, the characters were still free to choose this way of finding the inscription. Maybe they (as the scientists they are) felt that no sources could be trusted other than first-hand information?]
Corrected by Twotall
UK speed cameras don't catch oncoming traffic so there's no way Nicolas Cage could have used the camera to make a copy of the dialog. [I pass a speed camera on my way into work that catches both sides of the road, so one side of the road is being captured as oncoming.]
When Ben's father is explaining to Ben and Riley about the three statues of Liberty, why does he only mention two of them? They have no way to know it's not the other one. [He says something like: "there's the one in New York, one in the Luxembourg gardens, but he only referred to one as 'his lady'" and then the scene cuts to Paris, so we can presume he said "he only reffered to one as his lady - the one in Paris".]
Corrected by Blibbetyblip
The President's book said that Borglum had been asked to cover the clues at the Black Hills - which lead to Mount Rushmore. But the sign in the Black Hills - the bird - had not been covered. Had Borglum cut the wrong rock - or what? [It had been "covered" to the extent that a) the rock had to be wet to reveal the picture, and b) you had to know what it meant. Borglum had simply decided that people would be less than likely to venture into the hills while it was raining, and if they did, and saw the bird, no-one would know that it was a secret entrance to a treasure trove.]
Corrected by Twotall
In the scene of the city, Justin Bartha picks up a large gold brick with one hand that in real life would be extremely heavy. [When he picks it up, he acts as if it is heavy. Also pure gold is extremely soft and would not be able to be formed into nice sharp edged bricks. That is why gold is sold as 14K 18K. That brick probably had lots of impurities in it.]
Corrected by shortdanzr
You may also like: National Treasure | Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull | Iron Man | The Incredible Hulk | Titanic
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