Review: National Treasure (2004)

At the end of Michael Bay’s 1995 action classic, The Rock, Nicolas Cage gets his hands on a trove of secret government files. He reads through them before looking at his girlfriend and excitedly asking, “Honey? Uh…you wanna know who really killed JFK?” Although it’s not about the secret behind JFK’s assassination, National Treasure feels like it takes the bait of that final line from The Rock. It channels that conspiracy theory energy into a family-friendly historical treasure hunt. It also capitalizes on the goofy appeal of Nicolas Cage uncovering the secrets behind American historical icons. 

National Treasure is as ridiculous as it sounds on paper, but there’s a joyous energy behind it; it captures all the wholesomeness of a history teacher who wants to show his students “how fun history can be.” It’s also a perfect example of mid-2000s Disney, when the studio capitalized on the popularity of Pirates of the Caribbean to create a bunch of family-friendly live action adventures that fictionalized the past for the sake of onscreen fun.

The film is also a rip-off of Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, replacing a conspiracy theory about Jesus of Nazareth’s marriage to Mary Magdalene with hidden knowledge about a treasure of imperial spoils brought to the New World by the Founding Fathers. In the opening prologue, we watch an exciting montage of history as Christopher Plummer’s grandfather explains to a young Benjamin Franklin Gates (who’ll grow up to be Nicolas Cage) that the Knights Templars founded the Freemasons and that the Masons helped form America and shepherd away a national treasure that could only be found by following a series of clues embedded in national icons.

The opening sequence is a holdover of a different Hollywood. Back in 2004, the producers were happy to spend heaps of cash to reproduce snippets of different historical periods with large crowds of extras wearing period costumes for the sake of a few shots. We see Egyptians, Romans, and Crusaders before we get to the Revolutionary Period. There are computer effects, but not nearly as many as there’d be in a film nowadays, and there’s a level of historical scope that’s also lacking in modern blockbusters. Plummer’s narration carries us along through the grand evocation of the past. It’s silly history—the Knights Templars did not found the Freemasons, to be clear—but that doesn’t matter, as the film hooks us with the promise of untold stories behind the stories we all know.

Soon enough we’re in the present with Cage’s Ben, who thinks he’s on the precipice of finding the treasure. He’s double crossed by Sean Bean’s fellow treasure hunter Ian Howe, but not before Ben figures out that he has to steal the Declaration of Independence to uncover the hidden map on its back. From there it’s a series of chase scenes and historical lessons as Ben, his sidekick, Riley Poole (Justin Bartha), and an archivist from the National Archives, Dr. Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger), follow the clues and stay one step ahead of Ian in the hunt for the treasure.

The narrative follows the same formula as the aforementioned The Da Vinci Code, with Ben and his compatriots showing up at a historical landmark like the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia or the Congressional Library in Washington only to discover a clue that can only be solved due to Ben’s vast knowledge of American history. The film would make a terrific history lesson for kids if the history within it wasn’t complete bogus. But it’s still fun, even though the locations holding the clues are so obvious that you could simply go to historical monuments relating to the Founding Fathers and have a one-in-five chance of finding a clue.

Luckily, Nicolas Cage is fully onboard with the concept. He leverages the action hero chops he gained in 1990s films like The Rock and Con-Air and his naturally goofy energy to play the deadpan weirdo Ben Gates; he manages the feat of being both the nerdiest and coolest man in the film. Less successful are Kruger, whose character simply mirrors Ben’s with no true distinction in order to give him a female counterpart, and Bartha, who is insufferable and saddled with lines that mistake grating snark for humour.

There’s plenty to find lame about National Treasure, from the invented history to the perfunctory chase scenes to the fact that Bean’s villain seems to accidentally stumble upon Ben and his allies in every sequence. The director Jon Turteltaub is no Gore Verbinski; he plays the Jerry Bruckheimer formula, but he doesn’t add much visual invention to the action scenes and loves using swooshes and circular camera movements a little too much whenever clues are uncovered. At least cinematographer Caleb Deschanel lights everything nicely, leaning into the golden candlelight hew of the historical sequences and imbuing the entire film with an optimistic glow. There’s also something undeniably appealing about the treasure hunt concept. People love conspiracies, even tame ones like this.

In 2020, National Treasure is as much a historical artifact as the American landmarks it features in its adventure narrative. (I can only imagine how deranged the film’s conspiracy theories and invented history would be if it had come out today in the age of QAnon.) It comes from a time when the nation’s shared cultural values lionized America and held items like the Declaration of Independence as something close to sacred. There are still people who believe these things today, but mainstream, family-friendly entertainment would not package pro-American messaging in this exact way anymore. The film celebrates America as an avatar of goodness and has the optimism to believe that the government would not only let Ben off after stealing the Declaration of Independence, but also share the spoils of the treasure with the museums of the world, returning the items stolen during imperial conquest to their original homes. There’s something sweet about such a view of the world, even if it’s much a fantasy as any tale told within the film.

6 out of 10

National Treasure (2004, USA)

Directed by Jon Turteltaub; written by Jim Kouf, Cormac Wibberley and Marianne Wibberley; starring Nicolas Cage, Harvey Keitel, Jon Voigt, Diane Kruger, Sean Bean, Justin Bartha, Christopher Plummer.

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