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Reel To Reel:
National Treasure

How It Rates: ***
Starring: Nicholas Cage, Harvey Keitel
Rated: PG
Red Flags: Action Violence

Preconceived Notions: Jerry Bruckheimer tries to score again.
The Bottom Line: Better than the trailer makes it out to be, but nothing more.

National Treasure isn't so much a film, but a game of Clue stretched out over an hour and 40 minutes for a huge ancient jackpot. The clues on where to find it are on the back of the Declaration Of Independence, a document so old and so fragile it's a wonder they're still there given how much the original document has faded over the years. I know. I saw it at the National Archives a few months back.

What surprised me about the film is how much of it works. In some ways, it has the style and the pacing of a good caper flick like Ocean's Eleven. But note I said style. Beyond Nicholas Cage and co-star Diane Kruger dressed up for a DC-style ball, you don't see very much style. And you won't find much characterization or romance either. Not much of the latter is actually welcome, since it steers us clear of Yet Another Action Movie Cliche. But if we're going to talk about cliches, let's throw in The Nerdy Comic Relief -- Riley Poole (Justin Bartha), Cage's gadget guru and right-hand man.

The film opens with a young Benjamin Franklin Gates being told the legend of the lost treasure, protected for thousands of years up until after the Revolutionary War, where Masons left clues on where to find it in such a way that they could and the British couldn't. The Gates family, we learn, is pretty much a laughingstock among scholars for pursuing this treasure -- or trying to protect it.

Fast forward several decades, and Gates is searching beneath the Arctic for a ship containing a clue to the treasure. He finds it with the help of Ian Howe (Sean Bean), a Richard Branson-style thrill-seeker with deep pockets who isn't afraid to break the law. He and Gates part ways when they both find out they need to get their hands on the Declaration of Independence. Howe wants to steal it. Gates does not.

So the chase is on. Who's gonna get to the document first? Who's gonna get to the treasure first? And who's gonna end up with Kruger's character -- historian Abigail Chase, who's pushed into things when the plan to steal the Declaration goes sideways.

For a story obscessed with riches, National Treasure operates stingily, not developing itself any more than it has to. Even the payoff doesn't seem like an extravagant indulgence. But we are treated to a series of riddles and guessing games that propel us from one plot point to another. It's fun to watch, but it's not memorable beyond that game of Scene It? you played with your family the other night.