National Treasure

Reviewed by RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating * * *)

For A movie spending so much of its time having its really smart characters working out complicated things on its follow-the-clue treasure hunt, it's certainly not afraid of being dumb.

Sometimes that's unintentional. Like when Nicolas Cage's character - a treasure hunter from a long line of them named Benjamin Franklin Gates - faces a gunpoint standoff with his Brit backer, played by Sean Bean. Bean's villain might be named "Ian Howe", but in this scene Cage prefers the more informal if strictly inaccurate "Sean".

But as this is a Jerry Bruckheimer production, the next scene is giant explosion (on a frozen-in-ice early 19th-century shipwreck) reminding that these things are easily fixed.

Faults aside, National Treasure is still an enjoyable piece of hokum. That's mainly because of the archaeological daftness of its plot, the mild action excitement it generates along the way, and its small hint of Indiana Jones spirit - although Indy did leave America for his adventures. This one drives his dad's Cadillac from Washington to Philadelphia.

It suffers a little from the characters chasing each other around too many American historic sites and staring meaningfully into too many glass cases. And the romantic collision between Cage and Diane Kruger's passionate archivist, caught up in Gates' plans to swipe the Declaration of Independence, fails to generate sparks by chucking its wooden leads at each other rather than rubbing them gently.

But it's still funny enough to get by between the heist scene, the car chase scene, the foot chase scene and the plunge off the deck of the aircraft carrier (don't ask) and the inevitable scene featuring a torchlit deep and dark tomb.

Having been born to a family harbouring a conspiracy theory connecting untold treasures to early US history, Gates discovers the bounty's location is to be found on the back of the Declaration. He's not prepared to steal it. But Howe is. So he figures he must get in first - having failed to alarm the authorities, including the document's caretaker, Abigail Chase (Kruger).

Soon Gates, geek sidekick-comedic relief Riley (Bartha) and Chase are being pursued from one site of historic interest to another while unravelling the map. Behind them are Howe and his mob of Brit henchmen, with the FBI a long way out the back. Gates' long-suffering dad (Voight, who apparently has not had enough of playing parents of Tomb Raiders) gets stuck in the mess as well.

Something might be read into a plot about foreign villains stealing America's "independence" and therefore her untold riches. It comes with a Google-age bounce-through American history and that aforementioned daft backdrop which connects the Crusades to the founding fathers of the United States, which should play in the White House theatrette rather well. But while the movie has Cage and Co always looking at the clues for deeper meanings, it's not a film that resounds with any itself, although it does up the ante for blatant product placement and one might wonder about its lead genius having the surname Gates.

Still, it's one entertainingly stupid caper and quite the antiques roadshow.

CAST: Nicolas Cage, Diane Kruger, Sean Bean, Jon Voight, Harvey Keitel, Justin Bartha

DIRECTOR: Jon Turteltaub

RATING: G

RUNNING TIME: 100 mins

SCREENING: Village, Berkeley, Hoyts, from Thursday