Implausibly silly but lots of fun.

Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer
Written by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossi (Shrek, Pirates of the Caribbean, Aladdin, The Mask of Zorro)
Directed by Jon Turteltaub (Cool Runnings, Phenomenon, While You Were Sleeping)

Running time: 2 hours (not counting closing credits)

---Cast:
Nicholas Cage as Benjamin Franklin Gates
Sean Bean as Ian Howe
Diane Kruger as Dr. Abigail Chase (Helen from Troy)
Jon Voight as Patrick Henry Gates
Justin Bartha as Riley Poole
Harvey Keitel as Agent Sadusky
Christopher Plummer as John Adams Gates

Last night we had a screening for this movie. In the interest of full disclosure, I’m not a die-hard fan of Jerry Bruckheimer. While I loved Pirates of the Caribbean, liked The Rock, and acknowledge the praise heaped on Black Hawk Down (I never saw it), I thought Con Air was average, Pearl Harbor was awful, and Armageddon was so bad it was offensive. The question therefore, is how well National Treasure stacks up as a Bruckeimer film. It’s not going to have the wide mass appeal of Pirates of the Caribbean, but I can tell you it’s not offensive like Armageddon or Pearl Harbor, and quite entertaining. Nicholas Cage comes off as quite sympathetic as Benjamin Franklin Gates, the seventh in a line of archivists, treasure hunters and history buffs stretching back to a confidant of President Andrew Jackson. As a child, Ben, was imbued by his loving grandfather (Christopher Plummer) with not only a love of American History, but a love of stories of knight quests, secreted treasures, maps, and clues hidden deep within the grooves of American History trivia. Ben’s father (Jon Voight) does not approve of his father encouraging such nonsense in his son, and his dialogue strangely reads like a non-Bruckheimer fan in the audience voicing his skepticism of the absurd plot to follow, but Ben nonetheless comes to believe his grandpa’s story about how the treasure discovered by the Knights Templar within the Great Pyramid in Giza, Egypt during the Crusades was hidden in America to keep it out of the hands of Britain.

30 years later, Ben and his partner Ian Howe (The Lord of the Rings’s Sean Bean) and comedic foil Riley (Justin Bartha) come to conclude that there may be an invisible map written on the back of the Declaration of Independence leading to the treasure, and when Ben refuses to go along with Ian’s plan to steal it, and the authorities refuse to listen to him, Ben if forced to foil Ian’s crime, and ends up with the stolen document himself, with Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger from Troy), the beautiful archivist in charge of the National Archives (because naturally, archivists working at the National Archives tend to be such lookers) dragged into the chase against her will. With FBI agent Harvey Keitel on their trail, Ben and his partner Riley (Justin Bartha), along with Abigail, race to find the treasure before Ian.

What follows is a series of chase scenes as the treasure hunters find and search for clues leading them from one historic place to another across three different states, clues that are steeped in the minutiae of American history lore (I have no idea of any of these points is based in historical fact, but in a movie like this, it hardly matters), with Jon Voight again providing the sole voice of reason as he questions whether these clues are just an endless series of arrows pointing to other clues rather than to any real destination. The action isn’t too implausible, the characters are likable, and the movie is just plain fun. The planning and machinations that the film supposes on the part of the Founding Fathers seems wildly implausible, but it doesn’t matter. This is a Jerry Bruckheimer film, and one of the better ones. It’s take on history may be fluff, but at least it endeavors an interest in it as a prerequisite for the plot, and a medium through which the audience may think to themselves, “Ooh, I didn’t know that about Benjamin Franklin.” If you’re an expert in history bothered by the mistakes or flaws about Liberty Bell, or the Masons, or the hidden secrets on our currency, or who just plain doesn’t buy the technological sophistication required for some of the artifacts uncovered by the characters, then perhaps you’re watching it for the wrong reasons. If you don’t know one way or the other, then it doesn’t really matter. This is a popcorn film, and if you know anything about Jerry Bruckheimer, you should know going in what you’re getting.

Bruckheimer was in attendance last night, and gave the brief speech before the movie began (which not usually the case outside of premieres—this was just a press screening), and right before leaving when the closing credits started, I complimented him, saying it was very entertaining.

If you like to sit back and have fun, I recommend it.

Sean Bean up to no good again...when will he ever learn?

When they are in the bell tower of Independance Hall, they're waiting to see where the shadow of the tower is at 2:25 (or some time close to that) The problem is that the shadow will be at a different place each day at that time. Even if it was just to point to a general area so you could see the masonic symbol on the brick, the difference in where the shadow would be in January and June would be huge.

This was one of those movies that is implausible--but I really enjoyed the good, clean fun.
Well, I had three nits, but Clabberhead pointed out the first one.
First: the pyramids on the US currencey weren't added until the 1880's--so the Founding Fathers could not have placed those clues.
Second: how could Ben Franklin leave clues in the Silence Dogood letters--because he was only 15 when he wrote them--roughly 50-60 years BEFORE the Declartion of Independence was written! Some of the Founding Fathers like John Jay, Richard Lee, Thomas Jefferson, and Patrick Henary had not been born!

"Second: how could Ben Franklin leave clues in the Silence Dogood letters--because he was only 15 when he wrote them--roughly 50-60 years BEFORE the Declartion of Independence was written! Some of the Founding Fathers like John Jay, Richard Lee, Thomas Jefferson, and Patrick Henary had not been born!"

I'm afraid you missed the point here. He did not put the clues into the letters, he used the letters as referance points. I could base a code on YOUR post. For example, I want to send the secret message "Kail is great", I find those letters in your message and write the code. Second paragraph, 22 letters in, is the K, and so on. Franklin, or anyone, can use ANY document and build a code on it. I believe during the war they sent such coded messages based on famous books. Get it?

Oh---I understand now.

Enjoyable film that could have been better. The basic plot is goofy but it's that hokey goofiness that is endearing; if you wandered in, you might as well accept it.

I felt the movie could have used a better cast. Nic Cage is earnest as Gates, but not exactly exciting. Diane Kruger looks pretty, but I never sense any chemistry between her and Cage. Justin Bartha has several funny lines, but the scripters went way too overboard in the character of Riley, turning him into a living One-Liner, and Bartha does not have the comic timing necessary to perfect the character. Christopher Plummer has an all too brief cameo as Cage's grandfather, and Jon Voight and Harvey Keitel are welcome in the untaxing roles of Cage's father and FBI pursuer. Sean Bean is appropriately stolid as the bad guy, but he is underdeveloped, to be charitable, a plot device to be critical.

The action is somewhat perfunctory; the film is more interested in adventure and humor than any suspense (this has to be one of Bean's more civil villains). Only one person dies and that is the result of an accident. The film is also overlong (I was getting a tad antsy at the end), although it could have used some more backstory (how did Gates find the Charlotte anyway?).

All in all, an okay film. Not as good as Pirates, but I agree with Luigi--at least it's not an odious piece of junk like some other Bruckheimer films.

Not bad. Some of the chase scenes went on way too long, especially the one in Philadelphia.