National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets, 3/5

Rated PG. Click to view the trailer.

National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets is nothing but a silly re-hash of a knockoff (of The Da Vinci Code). Roger Ebert describes the hole-ridden, fantastical plot as "not only playing tennis with out the net, but also without the ball and rackets."

He's right, but who cares? No one is going to see NT2 unless they've seen and enjoyed the original and that automatically makes them a perfect candidate to enjoy this film, despite its many and obvious faults.

Director Jon Turteltaub and the cast of the original reunite with their various expertise to sift through clues and dodge the aforementioned plot (if not pot) holes. These include Nicolas Cage as Benjamin Franklin Gates; Jon Voight as Ben's father, Patrick Henry Gates; Diane Kruger as the sexy Library of Congress staffer, Abigal; Justin Bartha as the scene-stealing smartmouth assistant, Riley; and Harvey Keitel as the trusting FBI agent. There's also a minor character played by Armando Riesco. He nor his character are amazing, but it's fun to remember him firing flaming arrows at Zach Braff and Natalie Portman in Garden State. With a new national treasure to find, it stands to reason we must get new characters and we do. They include Ed Harris, who surprisingly is a worthless excuse for a villain and some generic guy to play the President of the United States. How do we know he is the commander in chief? He wears an ugly blue blazer that tells us so. There's also Ben's mom, Emily (Helen Mirren), who just happens to be a scholar of pre-Columbian Aztec languages (hmm... that might come in handy later). She also shows an alarming amount of cleavage for a 62-year-old.

On to the plot, or what I can remember of the plot. Gates' great-grandfather is fingered post-post-post-post-posthumously as the mastermind of the Lincoln assassination. To prove otherwise, Ben flies a miniature helicopter around Paris, breaks into the Queen's office in Buckingham Palace, pimps his wife (I think she's his wife) out to break into the Oval Office, kidnaps the president (in the blue blazer), discusses colonial architecture with his captive (the prez studied architectural history as an undergrad, dontcha know), releases him (don't worry, he's picked up by a trucker), breaks into the Library of Congress, escapes with literally the entire FBI on his tail. Somewhere in there are two planks hidden in desks written in an ancient language (I've got a C-note that says its pre-Colombian Aztec) that presumably will tell us that Cibola, the fabled "City of Gold" is hidden in the hollowed out base of Mount Rushmore.

Along the way there are gun shots, reconciliations, knowing glances, pithy one-liners from Riley, tired, determined stares from Cage, underground floods and skeptics that just keep getting proved wrong.

\NT2 is just as stupid and unbelievable as the first, but is also just as fun. Even though I only gave it 3/5, I recommend it. It's not going win at Cannes and I won't be buying or even renting the DVD, but it's a universally fun movie that was well worth the price of matinee ticket.