National Treasure

I'm pretty easygoing when it comes to movies. I'm not at all snobbish in my film choices and am open to watching anything. Whether I like a movie or not depends only on one question: Was I entertained for most of the movie's running time? If the answer is "yes", then I recommend the movie regardless of what critics have said about it or whether it has any artistic qualities. If the answer is "no", then I do the opposite. This means that I often like movies that got absolutely blasted by the critics and hate movies that end up winning Oscars. In the case of Joe Turteltaub's National Treasure, it was definitely the former.

National Treasure stars Nicolas Cage as historian-turned-treasure-hunter Ben Gates. He comes from a family of prominent historians that became the laughingstock of the academic community because of their persistent belief in the existence of an incredible treasure -- worth billions of dollars -- collected by the Masons over the centuries and hidden somewhere in the United States. The Masons reportedly left clues to the location of the treasure in historically significant American documents like the Declaration of Independence. The whole things sounds crazy, which is why the Gates family doesn't have an ounce of credibility left.

The movie opens with Gates and his assistant, the tech-savvy, wise-cracking Riley (played by Justin Bartha), leading an expedition in Antarctica for a wealthy client named Ian Howe (Sean Bean) who also believes in the existence of the treasure. Once Gates uncovers the hidden clue, he figures out that it leads not to the treasure but to another clue. Unfortunately, that clue is hidden on the back of the Declaration of Independence, which is of course housed in the National Archives building in Washington, D.C. under heavy security. Gates and Riley refuse to help Howe any further, at which point Howe orders his henchmen to kill the them. Gates and Riley somehow manage to escape, and make it back home unscathed.

Now Gates is faced with a problem. He knows that Howe will go after the Declaration and his conscience compels him to tell the authorities so they can prevent the heist. So Gates and Riley tell their story to the FBI, but get laughed out of the building. Their next stop is to talk to a fellow historian named Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger) who works at the National Archives. She doesn't believe them either, but there's something about Gates' earnest demeanor that makes her wonder a little bit.

Since no one believes Gates' story, he concludes that he has no choice but to steal the Declaration before Howe does in order to protect it. Riley is very reluctant to go along with such a plan because it would mean years and years in jail if they get caught, but eventually decides to help Gates out. So the rest of the movie deals with Gates' efforts to steal the Declaration and the subsequent treasure hunt that follows.

I have to say that I really enjoyed National Treasure. I wasn't expecting anything brilliant because it got such poor reviews from the critics, but as I said before, the only criteria I have is that I want to be entertained. That's precisely what happened with this movie. I know a lot of people have quibbled about the historical inaccuracies of some of the clues or the impossibilities of some of the action sequences, but that can be said of almost any movie. I have no problem with suspending my disbelief for a couple of hours, so those things didn't bother me. In fact, I thought some of the clues were rather clever and I enjoyed seeing the characters solve the puzzles.

I thought the plot was perfectly balanced between action scenes and set up scenes, and I thought all of the actors did a wonderful job. Although I could pretty much predict what would happen in the end, the payoff itself was still satisfactory.

This movie was put out by Disney and is a great family film. There's just a little bit of violence and bad language -- enough to earn a PG rating, but not enough to make it completely inappropriate. So grab a bowl of popcorn, gather the family around, and make National Treasure your next choice for Movie Night at your house!