I don't disagree with much of what he says in this excerpt (Cage and the girl were not in any way polar opposites), but this quoted bit is about the only thing in his 1/10 review I agree with. Yes, the characters are stock issue movie types, and yes the plot is silly, and yes there are about twenty utterly-implausible conveniences and coincidences... but I still enjoyed it, and I'm not sure what all the critics are so hung up about. National Treasure has just a 38/100 score on Metacritic, where they average together the ratings of a few dozen major critics, and a lowly 40% with a 5.9/10 average on Rotten Tomatoes, so it's safe to say that far more critics dislike it than like it.

I'd guess that they just expected more typical lowest common denominator swill from Bruckheimer, and chose to see what they expected to see in the film.  I went in expecting much the same thing, but was surprised by the movie. It's fast-paced, it's got realistic characters, relatively smart dialogue, no gapingly-absurd plot holes, and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

To the scores: 
(Click here to see these categories explained.)

National Treasure
Script/Story: 8
Acting/Casting: 7
Action: 7
Humor: 7
Eye Candy: 8
Fun Factor: 7
Replayability: 6
Overall: 7

I didn't really want to see this picture, and my main resistance was based on it being a Bruckheimer production. Past experience has taught me that that is a sure sign that a potentially-entertaining film will be sabotaged by dumb writing, dumb characters, and absurd plot issues. The fact that it was a lot smarter than I expected, and had a pretty good script and a plot that worked on multiple levels, and that I expected so much less, is what made me enjoy the movie. Expectations really are at least 50% of my scores, since I didn't expect much from this one, got a fun, light-hearted romp, and had fun. Objectively, National Treasure wasn't much better than any number of other popcorn movies I've suffered through this year, but since it was a little better and a lot more fun than what I expected, I had a good time.

There are some spoilers in the following, but I won't give anyway anything you don't already know from the trailer and TV commercials.

One of the most clever aspects of the plot is the way the race to find the treasure shapes up. Nicholas Cage and his wacky sidekick were initially on a team with Sean Bean and his dangerous-looking mercenaries.  When the trail led to clues written on the back of the Declaration of Independence, and Cage's historian balked at stealing it, Bean's character tried to kill him and the wacky sidekick and go on alone (which would have ended the movie there, since no one but Cage was smart enough to figure out what the clues on the back of the Declaration of Independence meant). Cage escaped and decided to steal the Dec. of Ind. first, to keep it away from Bean, and from there the race was on.

The clever part, is that early in the film there are three groups searching for the same thing. Cage and his sidekick and the girl have the Declaration, Bean's bad guys are looking for them and the next clue, and the FBI is looking for Cage and the Declaration. So there are some scenes showing one group solving the mysteries with historical knowledge, while Bean's group tracks them using Google and modern technology, and the FBI hunts Cage by accessing law enforcement data bases and finding out who he is, where he lives, what he's been doing, etc.

The multi-part search goes on for most of the film, and it's clever in that the script basically has to come up with two ways to solve every clue; one for Cage using historical knowledge, and another for his pursuers who are using Google and the Internet to figure out where he's going next, based on the few tidbits of the clues they have overheard.

I'm certainly not saying that National Treasure is flawless; it's got numerous plot holes both large and small, and quite a bit of the plot is just complete nonsense, but if you go in expecting it to be somewhat silly and are ready to suspend your disbelief a bit, you shouldn't have too many objections.  The clever dialogue and world-wise bits help too; at one point a character says, "I normally couldn't accept a gift as valuable as this... but I really wanted it." I laughed; it's a small thing but a nice touch of realism. Later in the film a bad guy sees Cage's character kiss the girl in a moment of stress, and mutters to himself, "Why doesn't that ever happen to me?" I liked the lament there that every minor character in every movie has probably thought, at one time or another.  There are lots of similar little touches, and while movies are usually ruined by having half a dozen scriptwriters work on them, with National Treasure it felt like everyone managed to put in one or two cute things, which resulted in a script that was fairly-packed with nice minor touches.

I don't know which scriptwriter put together the main plot, but if you've read the best- selling novel of the past couple of years, it will sound rather familiar. There's no denying that National Treasure bears unmistakable similarities to the plot and events in Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code. A novel that essentially reused the plot of Dan Brown's earlier novel, Angels and Demons. (Both links go to my reviews of those titles.)  National Treasure isn't exactly the same; it's more of a family story so it doesn't ratchet up the tension with a ticking clock or ritual murders, and it doesn't contain anything to do with religion or a reinterpretation of the initial intent of the US Declaration of Independence or anything else that might require the viewer to actually think. Which Browns' novels did, despite their flaws.

But the whole "unraveling a mystery with the aid of secret clues left centuries ago" plot device is exactly the same in both novels and this film, and this has occasioned comment in numerous venues.  It's the whole point of Ebert's National Treasure review, in which he dismisses The DaVinci Code, and basically says National Treasure is the same story in the US. However, as a reader pointed out in last weekend's Ebert's Movie Answer Man:

I actually wrote in to Ebert about this one, the first time I've ever been so moved. To quote myself, since I doubt I'll be able to link to it in two weeks when the next Movie Answer Man column goes online:

Regarding National Treasure's many parallels to Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code, you may not be aware of Brown's earlier (and I think superior) novel, Angels and Demons, which had essentially the same plot as The DaVinci Code. Also, Brown said in the end notes to DaVinci that his next novel featuring those characters would be set in Washington DC and feature a no-doubt mad race against time to unravel an ancient mystery based on clues left by America's Founding Fathers.

In that light, you might conclude that National Treasure is a rip off of Angels and Demons, which Dan Brown ripped off in his far more successful follow up, The DaVinci Code, and is going to rip off again in his next novel, which will appear to be a rip off of National Treasure.

Angels and Demons was initially published in May 2000, and while it wasn't the huge hit The DaVinci Code was (few books without "Harry Potter" on the covers are), it was a best seller. I figure the initial idea for National Treasure was basically a modern day Indiana Jones rip off, but once DaVinci and A&D became huge hits the script writers read them, liked the concept, and adapted National Treasure towards that proven formula.

In a weird sort of way, the success of National Treasure makes me more interested in the upcoming The DaVinci Code movie, starring Tom Hanks and directed by Ron Howard. After all, National Treasure didn't have that great of a plot, but it was pretty okay as a film. The DaVinci Code has a better, bigger plot, much more interesting historical stuff, and even a juicy religious tie in. Might it actually be a good movie? Or at least a fun one?