Critics Scoreboard
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Average Critic Score:
39
(35 sources)
39
(35 sources)
-
75
Chicago Tribune
Overall the film is alluringly over-the-top without being overcooked. Read Full Review » -
75
Charlotte Observer
The film whirls by in a satisfying torrent of chases, escapes and discoveries. Read Full Review » -
75
Baltimore Sun
A wholesome, headlong extravaganza - a sort of North by Northeast sans high style and erotic innuendo. Read Full Review » -
70
Washington Post
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 » -
63
Boston Globe
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 » -
63
Miami Herald
It's a tomb-raiding adventure movie several notches below Indiana Jones status. Read Full Review » -
63
Philadelphia Inquirer
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 » -
60
The Hollywood Reporter
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
Chicago Reader
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 Chronicle
It has no ambition, little sense and false sentiment, but it does have velocity, high spirits and scale. Read Full Review » -
50
Variety
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 Times
National Treasure is as doggedly hokey and ham-handed as a Disneyland ride. Read Full Review » -
50
Christian Science Monitor
Too bad the clever bits are swamped by no-brainer gunfights, rescues, and chases galore. Read Full Review » -
50
Chicago Sun-Times
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)
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 Weekly
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 Voice
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
LA Weekly
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 » -
50
Portland Oregonian
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
Salon.com
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
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40
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38
USA Today
Ten minutes into the picture, you're searching the screen for life-support machines. Read Full Review » -
38
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38
New York Daily News
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 » -
38
Premiere
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 » -
38
ReelViews
National Treasure's storyline isn't compelling or coherent enough to warrant the term "plot." Read Full Review » -
30
The Onion (A.V. Club)
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 Post
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 Stone
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
Wall Street Journal
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. Read Full Review » -
20
The New York Times
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
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20
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10
Dallas Observer
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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