MOVIE: National Treasure

STARRING: Nicolas Cage, Diane Kruger, Jon Voight, Sean Bean, Justin Bartha, Harvey Kaitel

RELEASE DATE: November 19th, 2004

WHERE TO WATCH: VOD (Disney+, Amazon Prime, AppleTV, Vudu)

By Justin Pomerville (2 Broke Geeks)

In the words of the greatest treasure/artifact hunter, Indiana Jones, “It belongs in a museum”. If you have seen an Indiana Jones film, then you already know how these kinds of films go. Once again, I am here to admit to everyone, this was my first time watching National Treasure. So, you already have a rough idea of what the next film will be, but what did I think of this heavily memed film?

Historian and code-breaker, Ben Gates (played by Nic Cage) and treasure hunter, Ian Howe (played by Sean Bean), have been on the hunt for an ancient treasure. Their latest clue causes a rift in their partnership as they have to look at the back of The Declaration of Independence. Ian decides to leave Ben and his colleague Riley (played by Justin Bartha) for dead when he decides to steal the historic document. Ben survives and decides that in order to keep the Declaration and treasure out of Ian’s hands, he would need to steal it first. While in the act of stealing it, he accidentally gets curator, Abigail Chase (played by Diane Kruger) involved. With her help and the Declaration in hand, Ben goes on the greatest treasure hunt in American history.

This film overall is fine. I did enjoy it, but it just makes me think about how it’s just an upgraded version of the aforementioned Indiana Jones series. That’s not a bad thing to say, because I do enjoy treasure hunt films, especially when it involves booby-trapped rooms and such and that is something this film lacked. Where were the booby traps?! Just a minor gripe, but still a gripe. 

Speaking of gripes, my main one was actually in the villain of the film, Ian Howe. He is considered to be just as resourceful as Ben when it comes to figuring out where to go next for clues in this film. Yet, he ends up doing the bare minimum and still finds a way to catch up to Ben at every turn. There is a scene where Ben gets a whole clue/riddle by sending a kid into a museum to decipher letters, then spending 10 minutes talking it out before figuring out where to go. Ian on the other hand, just gets the last four letters of the clue from the kid and uses the internet to use the top search as the answer.

My overall feelings about this film are that it is acted well by everyone, the action and suspense were alright, but there are a couple of minor details that bugged me. Not enough to make it unenjoyable, but just enough that it made me question some of the choices that were made. I’ll be curious to see how this affects my first viewing of the sequel. National Treasure sits in the middle of “Good” on the Nic Gauge.