Entertainment

22 Years Later, Nicolas Cage’s Near-Perfect Indiana Jones Replacement Still Holds Up

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Before Nicolas Cage played the web-slinging superhero in Spider-Noir and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, he starred in one of the most iconic film franchises from Disney which has recently made a streaming comeback. This feature led to a franchise, including a Disney+ series with 10 episodes and starring notable Hollywood names. And while it got mixed critics’ reviews, audiences loved it.

Cage started his career in 1981 and has since appeared in many projects, with the most recent being Prime Video’s Spider-Noir, as well as The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Teen Titans GO! To the Movies, and Snowden, but he also has many producer credits under his belt. But out of all the movies and TV shows Cage has worked on, there are a few projects that he’s known for, and one of them recently became a streaming hit.

National Treasure was a 2004 historical fiction action-adventure that kick-started a franchise, leading to a sequel and a Disney+ show that came out in 2022. Cage starred in the film as treasure hunter Benjamin Gates, as he and his friend Riley (Justin Bartha) attempt to find the treasure hidden in America by the Founding Fathers and other notable people in history, before crime boss Ian Howe (Sean Bean) can. Recently, National Treasure landed at #5 on Hulu’s Top 10 Movies in the U.S., sitting between 2024’s Twisters and The Home with Pete Davidson.

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Collider Exclusive · Action Hero Quiz
Which Action Hero Would Be
Your Perfect Partner?

Rambo · James Bond · Indiana Jones · John McClane · Ethan Hunt

Five legends. Five completely different ways of getting out alive — with style, with muscle, with charm, with luck, or with a plan so intricate it probably shouldn’t work. Ten questions will reveal which action hero was built to have your back.

🎖️Rambo

🍸James Bond

🏺Indiana Jones

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🔧John McClane

🎭Ethan Hunt

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01

You’re dropped into a dangerous situation with no warning. What do you need most from a partner?
The first few seconds tell you everything about who belongs beside you.





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02

You have to get somewhere dangerous, fast. How do you travel?
How you get there is half the mission.





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03

You’re pinned down and outnumbered. What does your ideal partner do?
This is when you find out what someone is really made of.





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04

The mission is paused. You have one evening to decompress. What does your partner suggest?
Who someone is when the pressure drops is who they actually are.





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05

How do you prefer your partner to communicate mid-mission?
Good communication is the difference between partners and a liability.





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06

Your enemy is powerful, well-resourced, and has the upper hand. How should your partner approach them?
The approach to the enemy defines the partnership.





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07

Things go badly wrong and you’re captured. What do you trust your partner to do?
Who someone is when you need them most is the only thing that matters.





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08

What does your ideal partner bring to the table that you couldn’t replace?
A great partner fills the gap you didn’t know you had.





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09

Every partnership has a cost. Which of these can you live with?
No one comes without baggage. The question is whether you can carry it together.





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10

It’s the final moment. Everything is on the line. What do you need from your partner right now?
The last question is the most honest one.





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Your Partner Has Been Assigned
Your Perfect Partner Is…

Your answers have pointed to one action hero above all others. This is the person built to have your back — for better or considerably, spectacularly worse.

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Rambo

Your partner doesn’t talk much, doesn’t need to, and will have assessed every threat in your immediate environment before you’ve finished your first sentence. John Rambo is not a man of plans or politics — he is a force of nature shaped by survival, loyalty, and a capacity for endurance that goes beyond anything training can produce. He will not leave you behind. He has never left anyone behind who deserved to come home. What you get with Rambo is the most capable, most quietly ferocious partner imaginable — one who has been through things that would have broken anyone else, and who chose to keep going anyway. You’ll never need to ask if he has your back. You’ll just know.

James Bond

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Your partner will arrive perfectly dressed, perfectly briefed, and with a cover story so convincing it’ll take you a moment to remember what’s actually true. James Bond is the most professionally dangerous person in any room he enters — and the most disarmingly charming, which is the point. He operates in a world of layers, where nothing is what it appears and every advantage is used without apology. You’ll never be bored. You’ll occasionally be furious. But when it matters — when the mission is genuinely on the line and the margin for error has collapsed to nothing — Bond is exactly the partner you want. He has survived things that have no business being survivable. He does it with style. That is not nothing.

Indiana Jones

Your partner will know the history, the language, the cultural context, and exactly why the thing everyone else is ignoring is actually the most important thing in the room. Indiana Jones is brilliant, reckless, and occasionally impossible — but he is also one of the most resourceful, most genuinely knowledgeable partners you could find yourself beside. He approaches every situation with a scholar’s eye and a brawler’s instinct, which is an unusual combination and a remarkably effective one. He hates snakes and gets personally attached to objects of historical significance, both of which will slow you down at least once. It doesn’t matter. What Indy brings is irreplaceable — and the adventures you’ll have together will be the kind people write books about. Assuming you survive them.

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John McClane

Your partner was not supposed to be here. He does not have the right equipment, the right information, or anything approaching the right odds. He has a sarcastic remark and an absolute refusal to accept that the situation is as bad as it looks. John McClane is the greatest accidental hero in the history of action cinema — a man whose superpower is stubbornness, whose contingency plan is improvisation, and whose capacity to absorb punishment and keep moving would be alarming if it weren’t so useful. He will complain the entire time. He will make it significantly more chaotic than it needed to be. And he will absolutely, unconditionally, without question come through when it counts. Yippee-ki-yay.

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Ethan Hunt

Your partner has already run seventeen scenarios by the time you’ve finished reading the briefing, and the plan he’s settled on involves at least two things that should be physically impossible. Ethan Hunt operates at the absolute edge of human capability — technically, physically, and intellectually — and he brings the same relentless precision to protecting his partners that he brings to dismantling organisations that shouldn’t exist. He is not easy to know and he will never fully tell you everything. But he will carry the weight of the mission so completely, so absolutely, that your job is simply to trust him — and the remarkable thing is that trusting him always turns out to be the right call. The mission will be impossible. He will complete it anyway.

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Is ‘National Treasure’ Worth Watching?

Since its release in 2004, National Treasure has generated over $347.5 million at the box office, leading to a sequel released in 2007 called National Treasure: Book of Secrets, which performed higher at the box office, and there’s speculation that a third installment could be on the table. Disney attempted to lure new viewers to the franchise with a Disney+ series called National Treasure: Edge of History, but it was poorly received and was canceled after its first season. While critics gave the first National Treasure movie a 47% score on Rotten Tomatoes, audiences praised the 2004 feature, earning a 78% score on the popcornmeter and a 3.3-star rating on LetterBoxd.

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Critics criticized National Treasure, stating it was trying to be Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark, but merged with a history lesson, or that it was like The Da Vinci Code, but with the religious context replaced with American history. Others didn’t believe that Cage was convincing enough to be a treasure hunter and saw him as a “social studies teacher.” However, some critics gave National Treasure some praise, saying that it “gave America sex appeal” and that it’s a guilty pleasure, and the only reason why is because of Cage’s performance.

National Treasure is available to stream on Hulu.


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Release Date

November 19, 2004

Runtime

131 minutes

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Director

Jon Turteltaub

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Writers

Cormac Wibberley, Jim Kouf, Marianne Wibberley, Charles Segars, Oren Aviv

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  • Diane Kruger

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    Abigail Chase

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