National Treasure

Critic Reviews

National Treasure gets more entertaining as the preposterousness rises.

-Ed ParkFull Review

So bad on so many levels.

-Richard RoeperFull Review

Cage? Movie star as social studies teacher.

-Lisa SchwarzbaumFull Review

Ten minutes into the picture, you're searching the screen for life-support machines.

-Mike ClarkFull Review

This infantile excuse for an adventure yarn plays more like a triple-cross between The DaVinci Code, CSI, and The Amazing Race than Raiders of the Lost Ark.

-James BerardinelliFull Review

Sluggish for a Jerry Bruckheimer production, but maybe the kids will learn something.

-Gene SeymourFull Review

As documents go, this one tastes like cardboard.

-Stephanie ZacharekFull Review

The best thing about National Treasure is how clever it is.

-Stephen HunterFull Review

Cage plays Gates way too broadly and crudely; I half expected him to break into his patented Elvis impersonation.

-Peter HowellFull Review

It has no ambition, little sense and false sentiment, but it does have velocity, high spirits and scale.

-Mick LaSalleFull Review

Plays a lot better than it sounds. Trust me.

-Joe BaltakeFull Review

Cage invests none of the edge, passion or heart we've come to expect from him in the part. Bean has no decent villainous moments, and the rest of the cast (save for Voight) is forgettable and generic.

-Roger MooreFull Review

People run. Things blow up. Sometimes, just to add another layer of nuance, people run away as things blow up.

-Stephen WhittyFull Review

Interminable and riddled with plot holes you could drive a humvee through.

-Lou Lumenick

Nicolas Cage usually brims with personality, but you wouldn't know it from this pedestrian ripoff of Raiders of the Lost Ark.

-Jami BernardFull Review

A joyfully convoluted adventure yarn that moves lickety-split through cliches, plot holes and overall narrative mayhem until the whole unlikely rig screeches to a halt.

-Amy BiancolliFull Review

National Treasure is not so much a no-brainer as a brain-stunner, so audaciously ridiculous you are initially intrigued, then soon irritated by its incoherence.

-Liam LaceyFull Review

A formula-action exercise that's part Indiana Jones, part Da Vinci Code, part history trivia lesson and all bluster, Treasure proves quickly that it's fool's gold at best.

-Tom Long

If you're looking for National Treasure to rewrite history, you're wasting your vote.

-Terry LawsonFull Review

National Treasure falls a bit short both as a window into the American past and as crackling good adventure.

-Robert Denerstein

Laudable, at times inventive.

-Lisa KennedyFull Review

A bruising US history class, taught in Dolby Surround.

-Wesley MorrisFull Review

National Treasure is so silly that the Monty Python version could use the same screenplay, line for line.

-Roger EbertFull Review

One of the more implausible movies in recent memory.

-Michael O'SullivanFull Review

This long, and long-winded, series of middling cliffhangers won't pump the adrenaline of action aficionados.

-Scott FoundasFull Review

The picture is 25 minutes of fun, spread over 125 minutes.

-Bruce Newman

Treasure may fall a notch below Pirates of the Caribbean on the pleasureometer, but it does give American history sex appeal and celebrates a guy who relies on brainware rather than gadgets.

-Carrie Rickey

With its ludicrous frisson of patriotism and a nod to The Da Vinci Code, a more cynical grab for Hollywood gold is hard to imagine.

-Stephen HoldenFull Review

Has all the soul, wit and originality of a major co-branding campaign.

-Carina ChocanoFull Review

An above-average popcorn movie.

-Kirk Honeycutt

More Critic Reviews

Critics

44%

Audience

78%

Critic Reviews