National Treasure - The Book of Secrets Details

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[Highly rated reviewer]

The gold appears to be fake...

The first National Treasure film was a reasonably fun sub-Indiana Jones romp. It far outshone the lacklustre efforts of the Tomb Raider flicks, and had a decent set of puzzles and clues which strung together well. Sadly, this second outing is none of the above! The plot seems more like an excuse for the crew to go on holiday at some nice locations in Europe and US, rather than a logical progression on the trail to find the lost city of gold. Right from the offset the film shows contempt for the intelligence of the audience by having a clue refer to something which wasn't actually in existence until 10 years later. That is only the start of the gaping plot-holes in the film....it gets worse, but let's not dwell. Now I could accept a weak plot in a work of fantasy fiction if the remaining aspects were fun to watch, but sadly only Cage seems to still be channelling the energy of the first film. The rest of the cast are terribly wooden, including Helen Mirren (who can't seem to decide on which accent she should use from one scene to the next). Ed Harris seems to have phoned in his part, and his character goes through a bizarre personality change towards the end of the film which makes no sense at all. Sadly they have recently announced a third film is in the planning stages. This second time around was more than enough for me....I'll be skipping any future entries in the franchise!

Fabulous Fun

This movie is great fun, just like the first it is completely unrealistic but an excellent modern day swashbuckler. Its te perfect feelgood no brainer to relax to in the evening.