National Treasure

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National Treasure ★★ 2004 (PG)

Old-fashioned and underwhelming adventure tale. Once upon a time, the Knights Templar unearthed the legendary treasure of King Solomon during a crusade. After being hidden in Europe, the treasure supposedly made its way to colonialera America where the Freemasons, who included many of the Founding Fathers, protected it. The treasure is a longtime obsession for the Gates family, including Benjamin Franklin Gates (Cage), who thinks his best clue is concealed on the reverse side of the Declaration of Independence. When his sinister benefactor Howe (Bean) plots to steal the document, patriotic Ben and his techie sidekick Riley (Bartha) try to alert the authorities, including hottie conservator Abigail (Kruger). Many uninvolving twists and less-than-exciting action sequences follow. 130m/C DVD, UMD . US Nicolas Cage, Diane Kruger, Justin Bartha, Sean Bean, Jon Voight, Harvey Keitel, Christopher Plummer; D: Jon Turteltaub; W: Jim Kouf, Marianne S. Wibberley, Cormac Wibberley; C: Caleb Deschanel; M: Trevor Rabin.

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