The last time Nicholas Cage worked with Jerry Bruckheimer in Gone in 60 Seconds, he stole a lot of expensive cars. In National Treasure, they're just stealing our time. Cage plays Benjamin Franklin Gates, the latest member of a family dedicated to finding the treasure of the Knights Templar-the group of medieval Christian warriors who allegedly stumbled across the riches of King Solomon after the First Crusade.National Treasure opens with a flashback to Gates's youth, when his grandfather (Christopher Plummer, Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country) tells him of the family legacy. Charles Carroll, a Maryland delegate to the Continental Congress, was the oldest surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence and a keeper of the secret location of the Templar treasure, which somehow-in a montage of poorly designed cutaways of ancient Egypt, Roman legions and the American Revolution-traveled from the Dome of the Rock to the East Coast.

When Cage first appears, he is zooming across an Arctic landscape in a snowcat with Sean Bean and Justin Bartha. Bean is the ultimately sinister benefactor of Gates expeditions, while Bartha is trying to make up for his appearance in Gigli. Bean, who can usually make a basic villain interesting, fails here in what is obviously an attempt to reminisce about his turn as James Bond's nemesis in Goldeneye. Bartha, as Gates klutzy computer-whiz sidekick, is in an even more difficult spot-after National Treasure he now has more, not less, to repent for.

The Arctic expedition is the search for a marooned 18th-century ship containing an ornate pipe. After finding the relic, Bean's character, Ian Howe, predictably turns bad, proposing to steal the Declaration of Independence. Of course, Gates and the sidekick object and are abandoned and exploded by their newfound rival. Unfortunately, the protagonists survive, and the movie continues.

The rest of National Treasure is an idiotic chase through the great cities of the East Coast-Washington, Philadelphia, New York and Boston. In the capital, Gates meets Abigail Chase, a curator of the National Archives played by Diane Kruger, who last bored audiences in her somnambulant portrayal of Helen of Troy. Kruger is a gorgeous woman, but her talent ends there. After hearing her light German accent, Gates asks if it is Pennsylvania Dutch. Kruger insists she sounds Saxony German, but throughout the movie, she just sounds like a moron.

The theft of the Declaration of Independence is turned into an absurdly elaborate sequence. Bartha hooks up to the National Archives surveillance system through a maintenance closet in a nearby Metro station. (In yet another Washington security failure, the stumbling sidekick is able to bring a cache of electronic devices into a transit system where commuters are arrested for talking on their cell phones.) Gates, as the protagonist, uses the tried-and-true method of a plumbers outfit over a tuxedo (conveniently, there is a gala the night of the theft) to gain access. Bean, also trying to pull off the heist, takes the obvious antagonists route of a smash-and-grab operation with the help of a few henchmen. There are expected mishaps and a bothersome chase down Constitution Avenue ensues.

Jon Voight, as Gates's father, is wasted in this movie except for his first appearance where he points out the plain stupidity of the treasure hunt. But he soon joins the band, as National Treasure tries to invoke the father-son bonding of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. As the Gateses fail to keep up with the Joneses, we are led through Independence Hall in Philadelphia and Trinity Church at the intersection of Broadway and Wall Street.

The director, Jon Turtletaub, ought to consider a career change from filmmaking to waste management. National Treasure is his biggest heap of garbage to date, following other dreck like The Kid and Phenomenon. For Bruckheimer, this kind of movie is his bread and butter: a cast of well-known actors in a mindless plot to save something important. However, nothing can save this movie.