National Treasure

Directed by Jon Turteltaub, National Treasure follows Nicolas Cage’s Benjamin Gates as he and his cohorts, including Justin Bartha’s Riley and Diane Kruger’s Abigail, set out to prevent Sean Bean’s villainous Ian Howe from stealing no less than the Declaration of Independence. It’s an admittedly (and unapologetically) ludicrous premise that’s employed to watchable yet erratic effect by Turteltaub, as the filmmaker, working from a script by Jim Kouf, Cormac Wibberley, and Marianne Wibberley, delivers a relatively brisk adventure that does boast a generous handful of compelling attributes – with, especially, the picture’s exciting action sequences and uniformly compelling performances going a long way towards smoothing over the narrative’s sporadic bumps. There’s little doubt, however, that National Treasure‘s palpably overlong running time prevents it from becoming the consistently captivating endeavor Turteltaub has obviously intended, and it’s clear, surely, that certain interludes and segments suffer from a padded-out feel that effectively (and pointedly) diminish their overall impact – with this particularly true of a dimly-lit, less-than-enthralling climax that ensures the picture concludes on a disappointingly underwhelming note. Still, National Treasure is, by and large, a fun bit of broadly conceived and executed escapism that generally manages to exploit its larger-than-life setup to agreeable effect.

**1/2 out of ****