Butt News Movie Club #8: National Treasure

Addicted to What the Dec Did

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We’re in an attic in Washington, DC in 1974 and a little boy with a flashlight is poking around looking for pornos probably. He climbs up on a steppy stool to peek at a high shelf covered in tits he hopes, when all of a sudden… jump scare!!!!!!! Christopher Plummer is there!!!!!!! Boo! He’s dead!

I can’t believe Christopher Plummer had to be in this movie. Meanwhile I’m over here thinking they should have called Christopher PLUMBER instead to flush this turd right down the shitpipes to garbage hell!

The kid is like GRANDPA! I WAS NOT LOOKING FOR PLUMP NATURALS I SWEAR and Plummer is like WHAT THE F ARE YOU DOING UP HERE THIS IS WHERE I KEEP GRANDPA’S TREATS AND I DON’T MEAN SOFT ROUND POUND MOUNDS and the kid is like ????????????????????? and Plummer is like uhhhhhhhhhh look over here! It’s… a scroll!! (Good save!) He says he guesses it’s about time the kid learned the secret of the attic, which is that it is a JUG-FREE ZONE 4 SURE but also that the last six generations of their family is a bunch of fucking dorks.

What happened was, grandpa explains, was that the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, Charles Carroll, was getting a ride over to Andrew Jackson’s house (“because he needed to speak to the president” – hope you like dialogue like this!!!!!!) but when he got over there “the president wasn’t there that night,” and so he died.

But BEFORE HE DIED he tittled a widdle secret to his driver, Thomas Gates, who just so happens to be Christopher Plummer’s great great grandfather, and the SECRET was about none other than TREASURE!!!! (And NO, NOT Treasure from page 17 of grandpa’s secret magazine!!) A long, long time ago, a medieval frat called the Knights Templar found a big treasure underneath the temple of King Solomon, and they looked at it and they were like [Dikembe Mutombo] NO NO NO! This is way too much treasure for one temple to have! We gotta take it and hide it or something! Wow, thank goodness for us, protecting this treasure!!!

I hate these dicks, but they do make one good point, which is that underneath a temple is the worst place to hide your treasure. People would AT THE LATEST find it whenever they get around to bulldozing King Solomon’s temple to build the Panera Bread, but way before that even happened any random guy could just be like “hey does anyone know where I can find a treasure?” and the closest person or dog or mailbox would be like “idk have you looked in the bottom of the temple?” You know they would!!

But King Solomon thought he was a fucking genius I guess, so that’s where this big treasure was, which was apparently too big to exist according to the Whites Templar I mean the Knights Templar. But don’t worry, because they “helped” by bringing the treasure back to Europe with them so that… nobody… stole the treasure? From the temple? And took it back to their homeland to do whatever the fuck they wanted with it?? And used it to amass and consolidate power among a small, insular group of white men and exert influence over global governance for generations????? DON’T GET MAD BUT IT KINDA SEEMS LIKE SOMEBODY DID DO THAT, YOU GUYS!!!!!!!

The Templars got sick of Europe so they smuggled the treasure to America and hid it again. “By then,” grandpa says, “the masons included George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, and Paul Revere!” OOooooOoooOOoooOOOoooooooOOOOOOOooooOo!!!!!!!!!!! The only Avengers I recognize! Move over tree guy and raccoon and maybe one with a bow and arrow? I haven’t seen it. They simply HAD to make sure that none of this treasure would ever fall into the hands of the British. (WHY? WHO CARES? NAME ONE WAY YOU GUYS ARE NOT BRITISH.)

So the Templars, who had by now changed their username to the Freemasons, went and hid the treasure real good in America, and then, over the years, all of the clues to its location were lost and forgotten. Except for the LAST CLUE!!!! Which is what that old dead guy softly spittled into the little earhole of Gates! And now for some reason GRANDPA is going to tell it to THIS FUCKING KID!

The last clue is “The secret lies with Charlotte.”

Wow, okay, thanks, good clue. nOT!!!!!1!!!!

The kid goes “who’s Charlotte” and Plummer is like “Oh, not even Mr. Carroll knew that!” and the kid is like wow ok fuck you then!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This sucks!!!!!!!

Christopher Plummer explains that the Masons “hid” clues everywhere, including all over our beautiful American money, and he starts showing the kid all the spooky shit on the money, such as the eyeball pyramid and the tiny writing in Latin, and speaking of good hiding places, GOOD IDEA 2 HIDE THE SECRETS ON SOMETHING REPRODUCED ON A MASSIVE SCALE THAT EVERYONE IN THE COUNTRY TOUCHES AND LOOKS AT EVERY DAY. Also, if you really don’t want anyone to ever find the treasure, why leave clues at all?? JUST THROW IT AWAY!

Then, Jon Voight barges in with the WORST VIBE. He gets all mad that grandpa is telling the kid about the treasure, because he is fed up with all the treasure hunting in this shitty family! Apparently all of the Gateses since Thomas Gates have been OBSESSED with finding this treasure, but so far nobody has gotten past “The secret lies with Charlotte,” and I hate Jon Voight but to be fair that is pretty bad. What have you been doing for six generations?? Just saying, “The secret lies with Charlotte” out loud over and over and going HMMMMMMM and calling yourselves “treasure hunters”? That does not count!

Cut to modern times and that kid has grown up into Nicolas Cage (NICE!) and one of the rats from the attic has grown up into Nicolas Cage’s wig. He’s riding around in some sort of snow car with a bunch of white men, searching for something under the ice. They park and hop out and they’re walking around looking for a wrecked ship named the Charlotte with their ship detectors and beep beep beep they immediately find it under literally one inch of snow. Yokay! Definitely no one would ever have discovered this before!

Of course Nicolas Cage has to say something erotic to the dead frozen boat, which is “Hello, beautiful.”

Sean Bean is the investor who bankrolled this trip to find Charlotte, because he wants a share of the treasure so he can become even more rich and buy 100 more snow cars. White people’s devotion to the Finders Keepers Doctrine is truly incredible. Like… why on EARTH would one golden nugget of this treasure belong to you, Sean Bean, just because you and Nicolas Cage “found” it?? King Solomon’s Temple was in motherfucking Jerusalem!!!!! People always act like National Treasure is just American History Indiana Jones, but it’s actually Capitalist Indiana Jones, which is fucking nasty. Indiana was trying to BEAT the guys who wanted to steal historical artifacts for their own self-interest! He would never sell something that belonged in a museum! I think!

They go down into the boat and everything is just a li’l frosty even though it’s been stuck in the ice for literally hundreds of years? Just a coupla snowflakes down there? U sure? They locate the cargo hold expecting to find all of King Solomon’s stuff, but dang. It’s just cargo. All the cargo is barrels of gunpowder, which definitely won’t become relevant in just a minute. They look around and Nicolas Cage uses his giant treasure-hunting brain to notice that even though there are a lot of barrels down there, there’s only ONE barrel that the captain’s skeleton is hugging. “Why would the captain be guarding this barrel?” – Nicolas Cage

Inside that barrel they find a secret parcel with an old pipe inside. Sean Bean is mad that the pipe is not the treasure. But Nic Cage cuts his thumb and bleeds on the pipe and uses it like a stamp (WHY U GOTTA USE UR BLOOD) and it turns out that the pipe is a riddle!

Now there’s a scene where Nicolas Cage just paces around talking to himself trying to solve the riddle. You can tell his brain is working hard on the riddle because he is saying the lines of the riddle out loud real slow over and over while he walks back and forth amongst the skeletons. This scene is so long that it maybe feels like they gave Nicolas Cage the riddle for real?

Eventually he figures out, oh! Of course! The riddle is saying that there’s a map to the treasure written in invisible ink on the back of the Declaration of Independence. Duh!

This movie is a part of a chain of events that led to white conservatives refusing vaccines.

Nicolas Cage is like hell no I love the Declaration of Independence 2 much 2 use its body 4 money like this it’s like a brother 2 me.

Sean Bean is like hey man people have been making fun of your dumb family for like 200 years for not being able to find this treasure—don’t you want to “rub this treasure in their arrogant faces”?

Nicolas Cage is like hmmmmm that would be nice actually.

Then Bean says that he’s not just a rich guy, he’s also a guy who could probably steal the Declaration of Independence if he wanted, no big: “I [have] arranged a number of operations of questionable legality.”

And Cage screams, “NO! I’M NOT GOING TO LET YOU STEAL THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” (that one’s an actual quote) so Bean is like oh ok I’ll just kill u then I literally don’t even care.

NED STARK WOULD NEVER DO THIS. Look at the range on Bean!

One of Bean’s henchbeans threatens to shoot Justin Bartha (who I forgot to mention earlier, but he is the nerd of the team) unless Cage tells them the rest of the riddle, so Cage starts throwing flares around trying to blow them all up with gunpowder. Bean and his guys escape, leaving Cage and Bartha trapped in the exploding ship but they’re just like “oh a door” and get out easily in one second.

Meanwhile, back in the snow car, Bean says that they have to get out of there “before somebody sees the smoke.” I don’t want to sound like a broken blood pipe stamp riddle but, again, if you’re in a place where someone might see the smoke then someone would definitely have found this ship before now!!!!!

Then there’s this dialogue:

Cage: “There’s an Inuit village about nine miles east of here. It’s popular with bush pilots.”

Bartha: “Then what are we gonna do?”

Cage: “Start making our way back home.”

Bartha: “No, I mean about [Bean]! He’s going to steal the Declaration of Independence!”

Cage: “We stop him.”

They go to DC and start trying to warn the government that Sean Bean is coming to steal the Declaration of Independence. The FBI is like LOL, so they go talk to a hottie with a naughty body at the National Archives named Diane Kruger, who actually takes a meeting with them for some reason.

Cage: “I’m going to get straight to the point. Someone’s going to steal the Declaration of Independence.”

Kruger: “You’re treasure hunters, aren’t you?”

Cage: “We’re more like treasure protectors.”

But are you though?????????????????????????? Seems like the treasure is pretty well protected right now, on account of being completely unfindable!!!!! Seems like the only threat to the treasure is FUCKING YOU AGGRESSIVELY SOLVING RIDDLES AND GIVING THE ANSWERS TO SEAN BEAN!

Cage asks Kruger if they can just peek at the Declaration of Independence to see whether it even deserves to be stolen or not. Kruger gets all condescending and says that she knows everything about the Declaration of Independence (bc she’s addicted to what the Dec did!!!!), and she’s personally seen the back of the Declaration of Independence and there’s no map there.

Cage: “It’s invisible.”

Kruger: “May I see the pipe?”

Cage: “We don’t have it.”

Kruger: “Did Bigfoot take it?”

Okay, bad movie, I will give you that one!!!!!!!!!!!!

Diane Kruger shows Nicolas Cage her George Washington antique campaign button collection and he roasts her for not having the complete set. The ultimate neg! Then she kicks them out of her office because she is the only person in this movie with a real job.

Wanted to mention that Sean Bean’s character’s name is “Ian,” which is the most non-intimidating name. Don’t name your villain Ian! I haven’t been to film school but I imagine that’s day one!

Cage and Bartha walk out, frustrated, and Cage starts speechifying about the Declaration:

“Of all the ideas that became the United States, there’s a line here that’s at the heart of all the others: ’But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.’ People don’t talk that way anymore.’”

Bartha doesn’t get it.

Cage: “It means if there’s something wrong, those who have the ability to take action have the responsibility to take action. I’m gonna steal it.”

Bartha: “What?”

Cage: “I’m gonna steal the Declaration of Independence!!! ... Ian’s gonna steal it. And if he succeeds, he’s gonna destroy the Declaration. The fact is, the only way to protect the Declaration is to steal it. It’s upside down. I don’t think there’s a choice.”

ABSOLUTE ROCK-HARD VEINY STRAIGHT LINE FROM THIS MOVIE TO JANUARY 6, 2021.

They go to the Library of Congress (“because it’s the biggest library in the world!”) to look up the schematics for the National Archives and learn how the Declaration of Independence is protected. The key to the heist, Cage says, is the Preservation Room.

Cage: “Do you know what the preservation room is for?”

Bartha: “Delicious jams and jellies?”

It’s not that I hate it. I don’t hate it. In a political vacuum, it’s a romp. It’s just that this movie was written for boys age 8 and 80. Not 8 to 80. Just specifically 8-year-olds and 80-year olds and no one else.

Justin Bartha goes down into the… sewer? With his laptop? To put a camera tube up the National Archive’s colon. Did u know that u could get video STRAIGHT FROM THE PRESERVATION ROOM on your Hewlett-Packard????

Meanwhile, there’s a sort of montage. Nicolas Cage eats a microwave enchilada. Nicolas Cage is outside the National Archives taking pictures. Nicolas Cage makes a fake ID. Nicolas Cage makes invisible ink! Nicolas Cage rubs invisible ink on his General George Washington campaign button, which is the one that Diane Kruger is missing from her collection! He sends it to her as a present! Wow, she is SO HORNY! SHE IS SOGGY FROM IT! That coin got her coin slot lubed up!

The score to this movie is so bad it’s like they wrote a really good score but then just before they were about to record it Nicolas Cage STOLE IT!!!!!

Cage sneaks into the National Archives gala disguised as a workman. But in the bathroom he takes off his blue collar clothes and has a tux underneath, which is a good metaphor for people who work at the chicken plant but think we shouldn’t tax Elon Musk! Because we all potentially have a tux underneath, right??

Uh oh, bad news. Bean planned his heist for the exact same night! It’s a heist-off!

Cage runs into Kruger and her colleagues and suggests they toast “to high treason.” Everyone is like LOL you are EDGY, MAN but the whole thing was a set-up so he could deliver a fucking lecture that I bet he gives ALL THE TIME: “[WELL ACTUALLY] that’s what these men were committing when they signed the Declaration!” Wow, you schooled them.

Cage peels Kruger’s fingerprints off the champagne flute so he can use them to get through the biometric security. Meanwhile, BEAN is using BRUTE FORCE instead of ELEGANT FINGER SCIENCE.

Cage correctly guesses that Kruger’s password is “Valley Forge,” because all these characters are like the Fast & the Furious people except with American history instead of cars.

Cage gets his hot hams on the Dec and now he has to GET THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE OUT OF ITS GIANT CASE, which is held in place by 400 screws, lol. After 2.5 seconds of okay physical comedy, Cage gives up and decides to just take the whole thing (also funny), which is a good call because 2.5 seconds later Bean shows up and starts shooting at him and he has to use the Declaration of Independence as a bulletproof shield! Metaphor!!!!!!

He makes it into the elevator where he manages to get the Declaration out of the case and ROLLS IT UP and puts it in a plastic bag. On his way out of the building Kruger spots him and chases him for some reason. Just then, the government finally notices that the Declaration of Independence is gone! Cage gets out to the van and an alarm goes off and Kruger looks at Cage like, “YOU DIDN’T,” because she immediately figured out that the alarm means he counter-stole the Declaration of Independence. Sure she would!

He hands it to her and is like, “Take it, it’s yours!” but JUST THEN SHE GETS KRUGNAPPED BY BEAN!

At this point it seems like we’re at the end of the movie, but there’s still approximately an hour more movie. Is it all just the end of the movie for the whole movie?

Bartha and Cage do a car chase and manage to save Kruger from the Beans. But Bean’s got the Dec! But then he opens it up and HA HA HA IT’S JUST A POSTER CAGE BOUGHT IN THE GIFT SHOP.

Cage explains to Kruger that they had no choice but to steal the Declaration: “We did the only thing we could do to keep it safe.” Just like Donald Trump.

At this point Harvey Keitel shows up as an FBI agent in charge of solving the case, a character that, from a storytelling perspective, absolutely does not need to exist. He notices that there were actually two sets of thieves trying to steal the Declaration and that they were mad at each other. What the???

The FBI uses its incredible sleuthing skills to figure out that Cage bought the decoy Declaration in the gift shop with his personal credit card. Truly an unstoppable polymath genius!

The invisible ink reveals another little riddle and a bunch of numbers, and they figure out that in order to decode the numbers they have to go look at something called the “Silence Dogood Letters.” (This movie is more like the Loud Do-Bad Letters!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

The Silence Dogood Letters were a series of letters to the editor ghost-written by Benjamin Franklin when he was 15 pretending to be a middle-aged woman named Silence Dogood. Kinky! Fortunately for them, Cage is like, “I actually know the guy who owns the original Silence Dogood letters! I came out of his dick! Let’s go!”

They head over to Jon Voight’s, because the most ironclad hiding spot when you’re on the run from the FBI is your dad’s house. Nicolas Cage is like hey, PS, don’t tell my dad I stole the Declaration of Independence, okay? I just don’t need him crawling up my butt today!

Voight opens the door and goes: “This better not be about that dumb treasure.”

I’m crying.

BTW, since this was 2004, our heroes will just say wildly misogynist shit about/to Diane Kruger like it’s normal funny dialogue? Like she’ll be like “Oh, what’s that?” and Cage will say, “She really can’t shut her mouth, can she?” or she’ll just sit there quietly and Bartha will go, “What do we do about her? I’ve got some duct tape in the back.” I was 22 in 2004!

Jon Voight gets mad that Cage is treasure-hunting, because “That’s all you’ll ever find is another clue. Don’t you get it, Ben? The legend was invented to keep the British occupied searching for buried treasure. The treasure is a myth!” (LOL imagine believing that one treasure could distract the entire British.)

Cage: “I refuse to believe that!”

Kruger: “He’s probably right. You don’t even know if there is another clue.”

What? They definitely do know that there’s another clue because they are currently deciphering it?? Dialogue r u ok????

Here I’m confused because they definitely already read the Silence Dogood riddle off the back of the Declaration, except according to my notes they’re now at Voight’s house trying to figure out what will make the invisible ink react so they can read it. And if you think the answer is stored in my brain then I appreciate the compliment but nope! I’ve read like 19 articles about Bobby Flay since then! The data has been overwritten!

Whatever, though! Jon Voight suggests that they “throw it in the oven,” because he still doesn’t know that “it” is the ORIGINAL DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, WHICH HIS SON STOLE. They grab a lemon to try squirting lemon juice on it. You guys! YOU CANNOT SQUIRT THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE! Kruger insists that she is the only one in this house who’s going to do any squirting: “Someone who is trained to handle antique documents is gonna do it.” (Surely your training says “DON’T”??)

She rubs the lemon on the map and then she and Cage breathe on it erotically to add heat. And a symbol appears! (No it fucking wouldn’t!) So they get a bunch more lemons and a hairdryer and absolutely definitely pulverize this extremely delicate historic document.

Now that they have the code, they just need those letters, but it turns out Voight DONATED them to a MUSEUM like a chump!!!! So it’s off to Philadelphia, where they pay a little kid to go into the museum and decipher it for them.

But Sean Bean is there too (HOW), and he sees the kid looking at the letters and immediately figures out that he must be translating the code (WHY).

Meanwhile, Nicolas Cage and Diane Kruger go to Urban Outfitters to buy some new clothes, because that’s definitely where a civil servant and a historian deep into their 30s would shop.

Using the deciphered Silence Dogood code, they figure out that the Liberty Bell something something at some time of day o’clock secrets. Cage literally instantly guesses that the time of day must be 2:22 because that’s what it says on the clock tower on the $100 bill, but they’re too late! It’s 20 to 3 already! But THEN Bartha realizes that when these fucks made this shitty treasure hunt, THEY DIDN’T HAVE DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME YET! They’re an hour ahead! It’s off to Independence Hall!

Notably, PANTS:

Back at the whatever museum, Bean gets the kid to just tell him the last 4 letters he deciphered (STOW) and then he Googles “stow + declaration of independence” and the internet is like “oh just go to Independence Hall” and he didn’t even have to go to urban outfitters AT ALL. Work smarter, not harder.

Cage sneaks out on to the roof of Independence Hall where he finds the Masonic logo on a brick. He starts STABBING INDEPENDENCE HALL!!!! Turns out, the brick is hollow and inside are BENJY FRANKLIN’S MAGIC X-RAY SPECTACLES!!!!!!! Kinky!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Kruger: “Benjamin Franklin invented something like these.”

Cage: “Uh, I think he invented these.”

I like how sometimes this movie scolds itself for being so stupid.

Then they UNROLL THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE RIGHT THERE IN THE INDEPENDENCE HALL SIGNING ROOM. GO SOMEWHERE ELSE! GO TO A HOTEL! YOU ARE ALL RICH!!!

Using the magic spectacles Cage can see a magic writing, but then he sees Bean stomping around outside. They split up. Some of the guys chase Cage, some of the guys chase Bartha and Kruger. Kruger climbs behind a meat counter to hide and says she’s trying to hide from her ex-husband and the Black lady working there gets her back because she hates husbands. This is almost the only Black person with a speaking role in this movie. Meanwhile, Cage is in a graveyard and some guy is shooting at him and destroying many historic graves and then Cage beans him with the Declaration of Independence case. Now Cage climbs up a scaffolding (climbing is never fast enough!!) and on to the roof.

Wow none of these people would get away at all.

Cage finally gets cornered so he throws the henchman the Declaration case, but it’s empty! Kruger has it! Then she drops the Declaration of Independence in the middle of the street where it gets run over by many cars. But whatever, I’m sure it’s not brittle or anything.

They run away. Now Bean has the Dec. But they don’t even need it anymore!

Counterpoint: Does it even actually matter this much that we retain a hard copy of the Declaration of Independence? We know what it says. Do I care?

Next, unfortunately, Cage gets arrested by Harvey Keitel! Did you even remember that he was in this movie?? Have you ever forgotten Harvey Keitel before?

Kruger and Bartha see the arrest and so they run away, but, hey, Kruger, why don’t you just CALL YOUR BOSS? HARVEY KEITEL IS YOUR GUYS! While Cage is trying to strike a deal with the FBI, Bean calls and says, “Bring those glasses that you got at Independence Hall. Yeah, I know about the glasses.”

HOW WOULD HE KNOW ABOUT THE GLASSES? YOU CAN’T JUST HAVE HIM SAY “I KNOW ABOUT THE GLASSES” AND HAVE IT MEAN THAT HE KNOWS ABOUT THE GLASSES!

Harvey Keitel says what’s literally his catchphrase in this movie, literally, he says it like seven times: “Someone has to go to prison, Ben.”

Is that actually how it works? Just “someone” has to go to prison, doesn’t matter who it is as long as we get “someone”? Isn’t that the opposite of how the justice system is supposed to work? Don’t you guys worship America??

Cage goes to the drop point to trade the glasses for the Declaration, or something like that, I forget. Uuuuhhhhhhhh there’s a big action sequence. Basically Cage runs away from both the FBI and the Bean people and jumps into the river. But then he gets caught by Bean’s friend who reveals that Kruger and Bartha have struck a deal with Bean! Weird!

Kruger, whispering (good call): “We made Ian believe he could have the treasure. It’s the only way we could get this far.”

They go to wherever the fuck and that’s definitely where the treasure is going to be. Bean has taken Jon Voight prisoner, for insurance I guess, but jokes on him because everyone hates Jon Voight! Cage figures out that the treasure is “beneath Parkington Lane” and “Parkington Lane” is a dead guy in a grave in Trinity Church. They bust open his tomb and, first of all, COFFIN FLOP, and second of all behind the coffin there is a tunnel.

They have flashlights but for some reason Nicolas Cage needs an actual TORCH ON FIRE LOL (it’s in his rider), and then Kruger and Cage KISS?????? OUT OF NOWHERE? Literally did not even remember they were vibin’.

Under the church there is a massive pit filled with dumbwaiters and a giant chandelier, which they light, with fire. Hey, guys, why is there a bottomless pit filled with dumbwaiters under the church? Are any of you literal historians even thrown by this at all?

Jon Voight is like “I am not walking on that rotten wood shit,” WHICH IS CORRECT. But they force him to anyway and of course it starts collapsing.

They fall down to the bottom of the pit and there’s nothing there. Cage says, “IT’S OVER.” There’s no more clues! But Bean doesn’t believe this is really a dead end. He threatens to ride the SOMEHOW STILL FUNCTIONING dumbwaiter back up and leave them there unless Cage reveals the final clue. Voight panics and caves and tells Bean that the final clue is “the lantern!” which means that they all have to go to Boston and do a book report on Paul Revere.

Bean abandons them there, but don’t worry! Jon Voight lied! It was a fake clue, AND there’s another way out, “THROUGH THE TREASURE ROOM.” They go into the treasure room but all the treasure is gone. Everyone is disappointed, but Jon Voight suddenly decides he wants to be a supportive dad after 40 fucking years and he’s like, “It’s fine, because you solved the riddles by the most brilliant minds in history!”

LOL NO THEY WERE NOT! Can we stop? The Founding Fathers were not “the most brilliant minds in history”! Based on WHAT!? This shithead mythology that white Americans have built around the Founding Fathers is a fucking brain worm that’s the reason why we have a “fire season” now and I am wearing a mask in this coffee shop despite being fully vaccinated.

Cage, dumbfounded, goes, “I just really thought I was gonna find the treasure.” HAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHA.

Voight: “Okay! Then we just keep looking for it!”

It’s like they’re placating a child! It’s like “Scams & Flams” on Mr. Show. See? This is my real hair!

They have to find an air shaft so they can climb out, and luckily Nicolas Cage knows everything about air shafts. “The first thing the builders would have done was build an air shaft!”

Then he notices an indentation in the wall, which is the exact size and shape of the meerschaum pipe that he found in the Arctic and has somehow kept intact in his pocket throughout the entire movie. “Could it really be that simple?” (HOW IS ANY OF THIS SIMPLE?) He fits the pipe into the hole and it spins around and opens a secret door! (NONE OF THESE MECHANISMS WOULD STILL WORK.) They all climb into the air shaft, but gasp!

The air shaft is the actual treasure room!

They did it!

Kruger glances around and is like, “Scrolls from the Library of Alexandria. Could this be possible?” How the fuck could you tell where those scrolls were from???? Nicolas Cage uses his torch to light a big trough of fire. Why do you have that fire thing next to the Library of Alexandria?????? There is so much treasure in here! And it’s… theirs??

They climb up the shaft and come out into the church and Harvey Keitel is there.

Keitel: “I take it you found the treasure.”

Cage: “It’s about five stories beneath your shoes.”

Harvey Keitel gives Cage a wink and flashes his Masonic ring, which means—great news—Cage doesn’t have to go to prison because the FBI guy is in the same fucking stupid corrupt white man club as him, which is truly the same as the KKK.

For some fucking reason, Nicolas Cage gets to decide what to do with this stolen cache of antiquities from other cultures, and we’re supposed to think this decision is hella generous: “Divide it among the Smithsonian, the Louvre, the Cairo Museum… The Founding Fathers thought the government should be divided among the people, so that’s what we’re gonna do with this treasure.”

Dude, the Founding Fathers literally had slaves—they hated freedom and loved tyranny! They personally stole this exact same treasure and hid it to keep it from the people! You told us earlier in the movie!

After the dust has settled (oh and Bean took the fall for stealing the Declaration, I guess—very cool), the team gets together to debrief about all the unconscionable destructive trash they did. Bartha is mad because Cage declined 10% of the treasure because it was “too much” because he is a saint.

But, excuse me, I ask again, why on earth should any of these dicks get ANY of the treasure? For a bunch of people so invested in preserving the history of this country, they really don’t give a shit about anyone else’s history, huh!? Ohhhh, nothing can happen to the Declaration of Independence (except for all the shit we did with it), but fuck all this other shit from Palestine and Egypt and wherever!

Who had the authority to “offer” him 10%? Harvey Keitel? 10% of WHAT? Surely every single gold coin in that stash FROM THE TEMPLE OF KING SOLOMON is a priceless artifact at this point? Can I just rip off 10% of the Declaration of Independence and sell it to get a Ferrari? It’d be one thing if this movie didn’t have so much reverence for the history of items, but THAT’S LIKE THE POINT OF THE MOVIE—unless the items were made by Black people, I guess!

WHY SHOULD THE SMITHSONIAN EVEN GET ANY OF IT?

There are movies that have similarly horrible ideas in them, but get away with it by being fun and funny, but this movie isn’t fun and funny, it’s just the evil stuff! It’s like if Michael Jackson sucked at singing but you still liked his music because of his personal life. They don’t even let Nicolas Cage be very weird! There aren’t even cool special effects! Just a script written by an 8th-grader that indirectly condones slavery, lol.

Anyway, then it’s revealed that they didn’t take the 10% but they did each take a cheeky li’l 1%, so don’t worry—they are rich like they deserve and Nicolas Cage buys a palatial mansion with wealth he stole from brown people and I guess this movie did teach me a lesson about American history after all.