Friday, December 28, 2007

National Treasure 2

I will start by confessing that I liked the first National Treasure. It's a funny romp through early American history to find treasure, what's not to like? I'm nerdy enough to like the references to Ben Franklin sending in letters as a woman to the local newspaper. Anyway, the second one starts with a similar premise, finding treasure will enhance the family name of Nic Cage and Jon Voigt's family. Ed Harris plays another descendant of an early American who passed down a missing page from John Wilkes Booth's diary that shows that Cage's family member helped plan Lincoln's assassination. To disprove this story, Cage and Voigt decide to look for the "City of Gold" which Booth was looking for to fund the Confederacy. Needless to say, he didn't find it, but he didn't have Cage's encyclopedic knowledge of history, nor the fun sidekick. They start on an adventure that leads to the Statue of Liberty in Paris (the smaller one), the Resolute desk in Queen Elizabeth's study, and the Resolute desk in the Oval Office to kidnapping the President at Mount Vernon. Once you acknowledge that they would actually be able to safely break into and out of all these places, it's just fun. Also, I didn't know that you can find secret passages in old furniture - they find a clue in a secret compartment in the desks and in the wine cellar of Mount Vernon. All the previous characters return, but they add Helen Mirren as Cage's mother and Voigt's ex-wife, who is herself an expert in ancient American languages and helps them translate some clues. Since Ed Harris is following them along their entire journey (he really wants the City of Gold), he's a great bad guy trying to ruin their fun, and of course (since it's Disney) ultimately joins their search and helps them search for the City behind Mount Rushmore. Overall, it's a great light-hearted thriller search for lost treasure. Cage has had some amazing hair treatments, and the clothes are better this time around, but overall it's a fun unbelievable movie. 4 of 5 stars for sheer fun-factor.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

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Jess said...

Thanks - I wish I spoke Portuguese so I could read your website. Maybe someday.

Anonymous said...

Fun stuff! Going to check out this movie and I can't be more excited. I got hold of the soundtrack by Trevor Rabin and it got me doing spontanous cartwheels :D. Personally I love Bruckheimer produces films, they are just so much fun and I expect this to be no different.

B-Mama said...

Jess, totally agree with your review of the movie... GG and I enjoyed watching it, just as we did the first. While the plot was almost entirely unbelieveable (with more than a few loopholes), we found the movie highly entertaining and plan to add it to our DVD collection when its released! I also love that Disney makes movies like this really family-friendly. Good for my boys someday!

Fletch said...

I tried as hard as I could to just turn off my brain and enjoy it, but when it comes to Nic Cage (and Jerry Bruckheimer), I'm only so successful at it. It was pretty fun, but it was almost EXACTLY the same movie as last time out.

Not horrendous, but nothing great about it, either. That's actually one of the big things that bother me about this series - there's really nothing memorable about any of the characters. They're all so damn boring.