Benjamin Franklin Gates (Cage) is the last in a long family line seeking the lost treasure of the Knights Templar, hidden by America's Founding (Masonic) Fathers. But when he gets the first break in the 200-year-old mystery, he's double-crossed by his partner (Bean). Now the race is on to read an invisible map hidden on the Declaration of Independence! Ben's accompanied by his able assistant (Bartha), his sceptical father (Voight) and a sexy National Archives official (Kruger)--with the villain and a clever FBI agent (Keitel) hot on their heels.

This film bears more than a passing resemblance to Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code, although it skips over the true meaning of all those strange symbols embedded throughout history in lieu of mindless, rip-roaring action. It's almost like a kiddie version of the novel, except that children will probably find the film rather long and boring, since the film is an extended series of clues and puzzles that go on and on. And on. Without deepening into anything more intriguing than action movie cliches.

But it's still extremely watchable. Cage does the accidental adventurer thing rather well, and Kruger holds her own with some very witty dialog. Bartha also makes the most of his comic sidekick role; he not only gets all the best lines of dialog, but his visual asides are brilliant, and actually make his character the most interesting person in the film (something the filmmakers obviously realised by the time they wrote the epilogue) .

Turteltaub never gets to add much of a directorial stamp--he's merely another efficient interpreter of the Bruckheimer formula--various chase scenes, a few explosions, witty banter and a superfluous romance. But if the formula sells tickets, why fix it?