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THE MOVIE: 4 stars out of 5 National Treasure stars Nicolas Cage as Benjamin Franklin Gates who is obsessed with both his family history in the founding of the republic and with finding the legendary Knights Templar Treasure, the greatest treasure known to man. In order to find the treasure he receives financial and technical support from Ian Howe (Sean Bean) who turns on him and abandons him in hope of finding the treasure himself. Gates and Howe discover that the key to finding the treasure rests with a secret map on the back of the Declaration of Independence which Gates races to steal before it can be stolen by Howe. Needless to say, Gates is successful in his attempt to steal the Declaration but is eventually captured and forced to cooperate with Bean to escape the FBI and locate the treasure. While the premise of the film is rather over the top and totally implausible, the film itself is just good enough to get you to suspend your disbelief and by throwing in just enough actual historical facts to pull you into the action and suspense. The film was filmed in Washington, Philadelphia and New York and takes you into the National Archives in DC, Independence Hall, The Franklin Institute, The Reading Terminal Market and historic sections of Philadelphia and Wall Street in New York. National Treasure is a very enjoyable fast paced film and one I can recommend heartedly for fans of action adventures.

THE VIDEO: 4 7/8 stars out of 5
National Treasure is encoded with AVC and is presented in its original aspect ratio of 2:35:1 and looks, in a word, fantastic, leaps and bounds ahead of the prior DVD release. The print itself is in excellent shape. The film itself had excellent color rendition and spot on flesh tones. As a life long resident of the Philadelphia area, I can tell you that the location shots in Philadelphia captured the color and texture of historic Philadelphia and the Reading Terminal Market perfectly. Black level is deep and solid giving the film an excellent three dimensional look. Overall clarity and detail is excellent as as well, giving the image the “looking through the window” effect that is the hallmark of the best looking high definition transfers. I have little doubt that fans of this film will be thrilled by the quality of the video presentation on this Blu-Ray release.

THE AUDIO: 4 5/8 stars out of 5
The audio on National Treasure is encoded with uncompressed PCM at 48 kHz/24 bit and is almost a match for the video. Dialogue is clear and distinct and well placed in the sound field. Bass is deep and tight providing a solid foundation for the action sequences in the film. The overall sound of the film is smooth and open with excellent dynamics. My only criticism here is that I thought that better use could have been made of the surround speakers to give the film a more immersive feeling. I thought that the opening sequences in the Charlotte and the final scenes in New York sounded excellent in regards to immersion but that the immersive effect was not quite up to snuff in the rest of the film. Don’t get me wrong, this is a rather minor quibble as this encode sounds wonderful. It is just not quite up there with the best of the best.

IN CONCLUSION
National Treasure is fun and fast paced dash through history (both real and imagined) and historical sites with excellent audio and video quality. Recommended.