National Treasure

Rating: 5/10 (9 January 2012)

I had heard about this film from Disney a number of times, knowing the leading actor and some of the premise, but I had missed it a few times, so I finally got my hands on it and watched it with interest, from director Jon Turteltaub (Cool Runnings, While You Were Sleeping, Phenomenon). Basically historian and amateur cryptologist Benjamin 'Ben' Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage) is part of a long running family of treasure hunters, he was inspired at a young age by his grandfather John Adams Gates (Christopher Plummer), and he is now on the hunt for the treasure still not recovered. He and Ian Howe (Sean Bean) found the legendary ship called the Charlotte in the Arctic, and it is there that they find a vital clue, after many others as well, that is a direction as to where to find the next one. They conclude from the riddle that the clue they need next is located somewhere on the Declaration of Independence, and Ian tries to kill Ben and his computer expert friend Riley Poole (The Hangover's Justin Bartha) after they refuse to touch the historical document. Ben does try to warn the National Archives about the high possibility of a robbery of the document, but they do not believe him, so the only way to stop Ian stealing and damaging it is to steal it themselves. So with the help of some high tech tools Ben and Riley do manage to steal the Declaration of Independence, narrowly missing Ian and his team trying to get it at the same time, and fooling them with a souvenir copy. National Archives worker Dr. Abigail Chase (Unknown's Diane Kruger) is adamant that they must return the valuable document, but the insist that they must at least try and find a hidden clue to the missing treasure they are searching for. Ben's father Patrick (Jon Voight) is disappointed that he is still trying to find this treasure after many years, but he agrees to help him find the secret message that may be on the Declaration, and they are overjoyed to be right. The clue is a bunch of numbers, and Ben remembers the Silence Dogood letters of Benjamin Franklin, and they decode the message to go to Independence Hall, where the next clue is located. After finding another clue behind a brick of the building on the roof, and splitting up to get away from Ian again, the villain manages to catch them, and forces them to tell him the location of the next path to follow. They are led to Trinity Church, New York, and it is below that they find hidden underground chambers that may in fact be the location of the treasure they have been seeking. Ben is forced into telling them the location of the next place to go, while Ian and his team leave him, Riley, Abigial and Patrick behind, but in fact the villains were tricked. The location they are is indeed where the treasure was hidden by the founding fathers, and even though the police catch up to them, led by Agent Peter Sadusky (Harvey Keitel), because of the robbery, they decide to hand over the treasure to go into museums and stuff, taking a cut of some of the fortune, Ian and his gang are arrested, and Ben, Abigail and Riley do good with their cuts. Also starring David Dayan Fisher as Shaw, Stewart Finlay-McLennan as Powell and Oleg Taktarov as Shippen. Cage gives a pretty good performance as the knowledgeable treasure hunter wanting to prove himself, Bean as usual makes an alright villain, Kruger is a feisty female joining in, Bartha gets some of the best moments with the one-liners, and supporting stars Keitel, Voight and Plummer do fine as well. These are the kind of films I like, where you are gripped as the characters follow the cryptic clues, and you hope that they are getting closer to what they are looking for, and you are satisfied when they do, there are exciting chases and tricky situations along the way, I guess I can see that it is not all original, but I found it intelligent enough, and I do not agree with the two out of five star rating, I found it a great fun action adventure. Worth watching!