“National Treasure” - Fools gold

“National Treasure” has been the number one movie in America for the past three weeks. It’s reign will end next weekend when “Ocean’s Twelve” is released, but it just goes to show you that the American public is not that discerning. “National Treasure” isn’t a bad movie by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s not very good either. At best it plays like a watered down version of “The Da Vinci Code” set in America and when it is at its worst it is simply a run from the bad guys movie.

Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage) comes from a long line of treasure hunters. His father, played by Jon Voight, has given up looking for the treasure to beat all treasures, but Ben keeps on looking. He finds a clue in a shipwreck in the Arctic Circle but gets double-crossed by the film’s villain, Ian Howe, (Sean Bean). Howe is going to steal the Declaration of Independence for the next clue and Gates must steal it first, to protect it and find the next clue for himself.

This process of finding a clue before the bad guys continues for the duration of the film. Sometimes it is engaging and fun and sometimes it is really boring. In addition to the good guy and bad guy chase, we also have the required love interest with an accent, Dr. Abigail Chase and the goofy, geeky sidekick that provides the much needed comic relief for the film. I can’t remember his name, so what does that tell you?

This review sounds really negative but “National Treasure” wasn’t that bad. It just wasn’t much of anything. The performances were O.K. but Cage has been much, much better in other films. The action sequences were decent but nothing spectacular and the same goes for the story. This movie will slowly fade from the limelight in theaters and will have a really good showing on DVD. I’m not sure that it is really worth all of the hype. On the other hand, millions and millions of people can’t be wrong.

• *1/2