Spring Break
Local theaters mark the spot for this Treasure
Cristen Kish
Issue date: 11/23/04 Section: Features
- Page 1 of 2 next >
From Washington D.C. to the money in our pockets, we are all holding maps to the greatest treasure in the world-a treasure that is 2000 years old and has grown and moved across continents only to wind up with the Founding Fathers who hid it one last time and left clues sitting right in front of our eyes.
National Treasure is not exactly the first idea of its kind. Think Amazing Race, Indiana Jones or the Da Vinci Code-but it's fun, action packed and has what I'll call far-fetched reality.
In National Treasure, Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicholas Cage) is not a treasure hunter but a treasure recoverer who is the last member of his family who believes that the treasure is still out there.
When he is still a young boy, his grandfather gives him the last known clue, one containing the name Charlotte; it's up to Ben to figure out the rest, which of course he does because if he didn't, there would be no movie.
From digging up an ancient ship in the Arctic to stealing the Declaration of Independence, Ben will stop at nothing to save the Gates family's reputation and prove that a treasure really does exist and that Big Foot did not, in fact, take it.
The team Ben has assembled at the beginning of the film quickly turns on him as greed sets in. But Ben and friend Riley Poole (Justin Bartha) figure they can handle things alone. And they do for the most part, adding Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger) from the National Archives along the way.
After the Declaration is stolen, Ben and company are not only running from the FBI but also from the team, headed by Ian Howe (Sean Bean), that got too greedy. What ensues are trips from D.C. to Philadelphia to New York, all seemingly instantaneous.
And Ben's ability to figure out any clue, no matter how obscure, is pretty unbelievable but when you've been a treasure hunter for as long as he has, he'd better have picked up something in the process because he sure didn't have much luck finding anything else.
National Treasure is not exactly the first idea of its kind. Think Amazing Race, Indiana Jones or the Da Vinci Code-but it's fun, action packed and has what I'll call far-fetched reality.
In National Treasure, Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicholas Cage) is not a treasure hunter but a treasure recoverer who is the last member of his family who believes that the treasure is still out there.
When he is still a young boy, his grandfather gives him the last known clue, one containing the name Charlotte; it's up to Ben to figure out the rest, which of course he does because if he didn't, there would be no movie.
From digging up an ancient ship in the Arctic to stealing the Declaration of Independence, Ben will stop at nothing to save the Gates family's reputation and prove that a treasure really does exist and that Big Foot did not, in fact, take it.
The team Ben has assembled at the beginning of the film quickly turns on him as greed sets in. But Ben and friend Riley Poole (Justin Bartha) figure they can handle things alone. And they do for the most part, adding Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger) from the National Archives along the way.
After the Declaration is stolen, Ben and company are not only running from the FBI but also from the team, headed by Ian Howe (Sean Bean), that got too greedy. What ensues are trips from D.C. to Philadelphia to New York, all seemingly instantaneous.
And Ben's ability to figure out any clue, no matter how obscure, is pretty unbelievable but when you've been a treasure hunter for as long as he has, he'd better have picked up something in the process because he sure didn't have much luck finding anything else.