This is one of those “expect nothing and you will be pleasantly surprised” movies. It will win no awards, but it gives the impression (after Pirates of the Caribbean) that when Jerry Bruckheimer makes a movie with Walt Disney Corp. looking over his shoulder, the result will at least be pleasant.

It seems that a huge treasure was brought to North America a few hundred years ago by the Templars (or their spiritual descendants; I always had the impression that the Templars sort of disappeared after Jacques DeMolay was burned at the stake). During the American Revolution, the Founding Fathers hid this treasure to prevent the British from finding it, capturing it, and carrying it back to Britain. For some reason, the Founding Fathers were parsimonious about telling people where this treasure was, and by the presidency of Andrew Jackson only one person knew. He tried to tell Jackson, but died of a heart attack outside the White House before seeing Jackson, and succeeded in giving a clue to its whereabouts to an early member of the Gates family, which then proceeded to spend generations hunting for the treasure without noticeable luck, until Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicholas Cage) comes along. Financed by English thug Ian Howe (Sean Bean) and assisted by software genius Riley Poole (Justin Bartha), Cage manages to find another level of clue in the hold of an old ship frozen in the northern ice, but at this point he has a falling-out with Howe and he and Riley barely manage to escape with their lives. The clue leads to the Declaration of Independence, which Howe intends to steal and which Gates consequently decides to steal preemptively; in the process, he and Riley pick up the film’s romantic interest, Dr. Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger, lately Helen of Troy) of the National Archives. More clues lead the characters from Washington to historic Philadelphia, and then to a cavern under historic New York; in fact, there’s a denouemont in which the villains get their comeuppance in historic Boston.

The film is a “ride” film, not unlike Pirates of the Caribbean or the Indiana Jones films; the action is essentially nonstop. The stealing of the Declaration is right out of Mission: Impossible, and is followed by a lovely car-race and demolition derby through the streets of Washington, DC. Perhaps more interesting are the ways in which Gates and Riley find and figure out the clues. You’ll see several historic sights, but take any American history described in the film with a grain of salt. (How closely linked the Founding Fathers were with Freemasonry will remain a matter for discussion.)

Again, a film that is better than it could have been.