Enjoyable romp ...

Rating: 8/10 (17 August 2006)

It has to be said - NATIONAL TREASURE is not the fastest, cleverest or most high concept action/mystery you will ever see. The actual quest for the treasure is propelled by clues that alternate between being so simple a ten year old could figure them out, and being so obscure, the characters only solve them because the scriptwriters already knew the answer.
But that doesn't really matter as the film is immensely entertaining. Cage, Kruger and Bartha are likable leads, though Sean Bean is a rather bland and ineffectual villain. Which is odd, because I think Bean is a terrific actor. True, his Hollywood efforts have been less than spectacular (as someone has already observed here), but you only have to watch one of his SHARPE TV movies to realise what an effective screen actor he can be given the right material.
However, I would like to take some of the reviewers to task over their assertion that NATIONAL TREASURE mines the same story veins as hackmeister Dan Brown's books. Because I have read more types of books than cheesy supermarket paperbacks, I know that Dan Brown has cynically plundered the work of others in constructing his "novels". So if you really want to know more about the role of the Templars and the Masons in the setting up of the New World Order (Google it, folks and see that Dan Brown didn't invent this stuff!) then you should take a look at the works of others who explore this alternative version of history.
Particularly recommended are the books of Lomas and Knight, "The Hiram Key" and "The Second Messiah" and 1975's raucously enjoyable "Illuminatus Trilogy" by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson.
One slight niggle I have with NT is that I found it hard to accept that the Templar Treasure was so bulky, and that it was still in its hiding place. My own belief is that the treasure of the Templars was more along the lines of knowledge than of gold (there's a nod to this in the movie when Abigail discovers some scrolls from the Library of Alexandria in the treasure room) and it was this knowledge that led to the Templars being rounded up and burnt as heretics in 1314.
So, while NATIONAL TREASURE is an entertaining action adventure which scratches the surface of the true history of the US and utilises fragments to construct its workman-like plot, there is a good deal more to all this than the movie would have you believe.
Go! Read! Discover the background for yourself. You'll be amazed.