Light geeky fun well worth your money

Rating: 8/10 (21 November 2004)

In these post-X-Files days in which we live, where the government is run largely by greedy idiots, it can be a sore temptation to imbue our founding fathers with even greater intelligence and insight than they had (or as Bono once said, 'You glorify the past/ when the future dries up'). Now, granted, we had an uncommonly selfless and outstanding group of men working together to start America, but I don't know that they were all shifty Freemasons who hid the greatest treasure ever assembled in the history of mankind and then left painstakingly obscure clues as to where they had done so.
But that's entirely the premise of National Treasure, the new Bruckheimer opus that opened this weekend. Treasure centers around one Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nick Cage) as he tries to track down said treasure, a family obsession dating back to the early nineteenth century. Abetting him on this madman's quest is requisite computer geek Riley Poole (Justin Bartha) and equally requisite skeptical eye candy Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger, who started the Greatest War Story Ever Told in this summer's Troy). Of course we know that Gates must be on to something, not only because no one believes him (not even his dad Patrick, played by Jon Voight) except the villain Ian Howe (Sean Bean), but because, well, you wouldn't have much of a story without the treasure now, would you?
Treasure is not only an above-average sleuth/treasure hunt movie, it's also a history lesson. You get to learn all sorts of historical facts (like Ben Franklin arguing for the inception of daylight savings time) along with the light action, which for me, anyway, doubled the fun. Someone obviously loved their history; the tidbits are scattered throughout, often interspersed with plot points, and look at the names of the principles: the evil Englishman is named Howe, Ben's dad is named after Patrick Henry, etc. It's kind of a history geek thing, but I thought it was fun.
What I most liked about the movie, though, was that the heroes are all smart. Cage's Gates is a historical encyclopedia, but he's also sharp-witted (if a bit absent minded). It's nice to see a geek hero, and Cage fits the role very well (Poole and Chase are much the same, her sleek good looks notwithstanding). Cage gives his hero a passion for both history and the hunt, and his earnestness helps give the movie an added bit of believability and seriousness that playing it tongue-in-cheek would have ruined. Bartha treads the same line with Poole, though he gets most of the best comedy lines. Kruger, who will probably never be mistaken for a great actress, is fine here, even if her Abigail does shuck a lifetime's worth of law abidance to the wind in just under an hour to aid the man who steals the Declaration of Independence. But once Abby's on his side, she, like the boys, uses her considerable wits to help figure it all out.
The plot and the clues are a little needlessly complex, but they are woven into the dialogue with some skill. We never feel like we're getting a history lesson (or at least I didn't, but then I'm partial to history as a subject), but we're given all the information we need to solve the riddle along with Gates. Yeah, some of the plot twists are a tad outlandish; Ben Franklin made a special pair of eyeglasses that still work two hundred years later after being sealed inside a hollow brick on an external wall? And so on. But Treasure isn't trying to be a serious brain flick, it's trying to be a slightly updated version of Raiders of the Lost Ark. And for my money, it succeeds.
National Treasure is a great deal of fun. Cage, who's been doing deeper films of late, has never been more fun or likable than he is here, and he was perfect for the role. It's not the most solid film of its ilk this year  that would have to be Bourne Supremacy-but Treasure can hold its own and entertain you while doing it. Well worth the price of admission to watch Cage and Co. traipse around the east coast acting one part Mission Impossible and two parts History's Detectives.