Starring: Nicolas Cage, Diane Kruger, Justin Bartha, Sean Bean

7 out of 10 stars:

National Treasure was commissioned in honor of the United States's Bicentennial of 1976 but, due to a governmental slip-up, is just getting to us now.

Well, at least that's what this new film from director Jon Turtletaub feels like. National Treasure seems to come from another time, a film to which a Den Leader could take Boy Scout Troop 46. It's entertaining in the old-fashioned sense; there isn't any gore, or sex, or profanity.

While lacking nudity and curse words, it does have an abundance of references to historical artifacts and monuments. Just a sample of the locations include the Lincoln Memorial, Independence Hall, the Library of Congress, the Franklin Institute, Trinity Church and the Liberty Bell's tower. (The National Parks Service and the National Archives must have created a subdepartment just to work with this film alone.) National Treasure is clean, but it doesn't seem to be the result of omission or excision; Treasure is as crisp, reverent, and straightforward as a U.S. history textbook from 1953 or a newly-minted bill.

The one dollar bill, with its cryptic inscriptions including the unfinished pyramid and the all-seeing eye, has been the cited source for a wealth of conspiracy theories. In National Treasure, it, along with the hundred dollar bill, is just one of the clues that helps Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage in "normal" gear) seek out a legendary store-hold of riches and artifacts.

As a young boy, Ben heard from his grandfather (Christopher Plummer, looking ageless) the story of a treasure that had accumulated over the centuries, amassed by the Knights Templar. The Knights, who pop up now in these archaeology adventures with the same frequency that Jesus Christ used to be invoked in old sword-and-sandal epics, were Crusaders who excavated the Temple of Solomon. Therein they found enormous riches which became their power base when they transformed into the Freemasons, in the face of a scourge in the early 1300s. The Freemasons, the quasi-religious fraternity that gets blamed for everything from the Black Plague to the World Trade Organization, set themselves up in America and the fortune was relocated here during the American Revolution. To keep the treasure from the British the Founding Fathers (and Freemasons), including Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, hid it and left clues for the initiated, including one left accidentally to Benjamin Gates's ancestor and one on the back of the Declaration of Independence.

Gates finds his second clue in the Charlotte, a ship packed in ice in the far north. In the hold of the excavated ship Gates and his comedic sidekick Riley Poole (Justin Bartha) find the next clue and determine that the follow-up clue is on the back of the Declaration of Independence. Because of that document's historical value, Gates finds his trail at an end. His partner and financier, Ian Howe (Sean Bean), doesn't face the same ethical quandary and, seeing that Gates and Poole are unlikely to cooperate, decides to kill them both and steal the Declaration himself. Gates and Poole, who survive the attempt on their lives, realize that to protect the Declaration they have to steal it before Ian does.

Hitchcock referred to the device that everyone in the film is trying to attain as the Macguffin (various spellings). Although the characters care very much about getting the Macguffin (often a chip, or a disc, or secret plans) it most frequently has no intrinsic value itself. It's a clever conceit to make the Macguffin in this case invaluable and one of the most important documents in the world.

Hitchcock also demanded an icy blonde for his films, and Diane Kruger would have made his nostrils flare. She plays Abigail Chase, a conservator at the Archives who is first Gates's confidant, then his unwitting ally, then his hostage. Kruger does this thing with her mouth, she talks out of the side of it, looking as if she's whispering office secrets in the lunchroom, that is pretty damn attractive. She wasn't given much of a chance to do anything except look lusty or guilty as Helen of Troy and she makes a good foil for Cage, as well as pulling off small bits of comedy along the way.

Jon Turtletaub can always be counted on to make commercial fare and to make movies that feel a bit rushed and a bit bruised. He allowed Disney to smother his otherwise elegant and subtle Phenomenon with a Forrest Gump soundtrack, and National Treasure feels so preened in the editing room that they pulled a couple of pinfeathers out (for example, in one scene in the hold of the Charlotte, one of Ian's thugs appears beside them out of thin air). Of course, one can understand Turltetaub's agreeable nature; the one time he didn't play along, the finale-flawed, but otherwise inspired Instinct, he was critically and commercially drubbed. Fight for your stuff, Jon.

Lots of the plot of the film echoes numerous plot points of The Da Vinci Code; Columbia, Ron Howard, (the currently-signed director) and crew must be hoping that National Treaure becomes a cinematic footnote quickly. Watching Treasure one can't help but wonder just how Da Vinci, which relies on much more exposition than Treasure, will be able to pull it off.

Because Da Vinci features numerous scenes of violence and murder it's doubtful they can go with the Boy Scout route, which National Treasure does exceedingly well.