National Treasure
Buena Vista Pictures | Release Date: November 19, 2004 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
40
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 36 Critic Reviews
Positive:
8
Mixed:
15
Negative:
13
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
75
Chicago TribuneAllison Benedikt
Overall the film is alluringly over-the-top without being overcooked. Read full review
75
Charlotte ObserverLawrence Toppman
The film whirls by in a satisfying torrent of chases, escapes and discoveries. Read full review
75
Baltimore SunMichael Sragow
A wholesome, headlong extravaganza - a sort of North by Northeast sans high style and erotic innuendo. Read full review
70
Washington PostStephen Hunter
Cleverness can be overrated but it can be underrated too, and the best thing about National Treasure is how clever it is. Read full review
70
Film ThreatJason Delgado
Cage is the glue that holds it all together, with a determined obsession in everything he does here. Read full review
63
Miami HeraldPeter Debruge
It's a tomb-raiding adventure movie several notches below Indiana Jones status. Read full review
63
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
An undeniable pleasure of National Treasure was watching a movie shot locally that wasn't haunted by a virus or by dead people. Read full review
63
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
National Treasure even has a rough time approaching the heart of ''The Amazing Race," a show that manages, in 44 minutes, to make you care about average folks as they follow clues across the globe. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
If you're going to tell a wildly implausible tale of fortune hunting and unlikely heroes, you could do worse than National Treasure. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Too bad the clever bits are swamped by no-brainer gunfights, rescues, and chases galore. Read full review
50
Seattle Post-IntelligencerWilliam Arnold
Too dumb and improbable to even go into. Read full review
50
Chicago ReaderJ.R. Jones
It runs like a Swiss watch, though the plot continuously turns on Cage's liberal interpretation of ridiculously cryptic clues. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
It has no ambition, little sense and false sentiment, but it does have velocity, high spirits and scale. Read full review
50
VarietyScott Foundas
Tries to combine the suspense of old Saturday morning serials with the gusto of producer Jerry Bruckheimer's action pics. Falling short on both counts, this long, and long-winded, series of middling cliffhangers won't pump the adrenaline of action aficionados or -- the family crowd. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesCarina Chocano
National Treasure is as doggedly hokey and ham-handed as a Disneyland ride. Read full review
50
Portland OregonianM. E. Russell
Nicolas Cageologists will be sad to hear that he's entirely too normal in National Treasure -- he's mildly funny but doesn't make any of the kooky dramatic choices (needless accents, ranting about the orifices of Greek gods) that made his other Bruckheimer performances so much fun to watch. Read full review
50
SalonStephanie Zacharek
Jon Voight shows up as Ben's daddy, and Harvey Keitel plays a devilishly goateed FBI agent: They're the only two actors who seem to have a sense of how ridiculous National Treasure is, but there's not enough of them to carry the picture. Read full review
50
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
National Treasure is so silly that the Monty Python version could use the same screenplay, line for line. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
Coming from writers responsible for such material as "Snow Dogs" and "The 6th Day," 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. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
The character of a scruffy computer nerd, played with might-as-well-enjoy-myself charm by little-known actor Justin Bartha, steals the picture from glossier players. Read full review
50
Village VoiceEd Park
Ham-handed to start, with a fondness for cochlea-crushing decibel levels, National Treasure gets more entertaining as the preposterousness rises. Read full review
50
L.A. WeeklyRobert Abele
Can't match an ounce of the suspense generated by contestants frantically buying airline tickets on Bruckheimer's own TV money quest, "The Amazing Race." This movie is a fortune wasted. Read full review
40
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
It's a silly, stupendously artificial enterprise. Read full review
38
USA TodayMike Clark
Ten minutes into the picture, you're searching the screen for life-support machines. Read full review
38
New York PostLou Lumenick
Sort of "The Da Vinci Code for Dummies." Read full review
38
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
National Treasure's storyline isn't compelling or coherent enough to warrant the term "plot." Read full review
38
PremiereAaron Hillis
For his fourth paycheck-cashing run through “J-Bruck’s” action-hero gauntlet, Cage lazily plays Benjamin Franklin Gates-the first of many overstuffed social-studies references. Read full review
37
New York Daily NewsJami Bernard
If the Founding Fathers had known National Treasure would be the result of their efforts to forge a new nation, they might have reached for the Wite-Out. Read full review
30
The A.V. ClubNathan Rabin
It lacks the conviction to embrace its own garish awfulness, resulting in little more than tedious historical and patriotic hokum, a preposterous potboiler done in by slack pacing and pedestrian execution. Read full review
30
Washington PostMichael O'Sullivan
Rated PG, which must stand for "particularly gullible," it's "Raiders of the Lost Ark" for people who slept through American history class. Read full review
25
Rolling StonePeter Travers
It's not just hard to believe any of this, it's impossible. And director Jon Turteltaub (Phenomenom) directs with robotic cheerlessness. Read full review
20
The New York TimesStephen Holden
If National Treasure mattered at all, you might call it a national disgrace, but this piece of flotsam is so inconsequential that it amounts to little more than a piece of Hollywood accounting. Read full review
20
Film ThreatPete Vonder Haar
Has almost nothing to recommend it. Read full review
20
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
Absurdism taken to a new extreme. Read full review
20
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
Disney's National Treasure is supposed to be family-friendly, a PG-rated action adventure free of hard violence and bad language. That's admirable, to be sure, but with a friend like this a family doesn't need sleeping pills.
10
Dallas ObserverRobert Wilonsky
Isn't any fun at all, which is ultimately the most damning thing you can say about a Bruckheimer movie. Read full review
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