THIS is Nicolas CAGE. Remember when I used to make quiet movies for smart people? Things have CHANGED.
“National Treasure: Book of Secrets” is my latest LOUD movie for IDIOTS. It’s another flick about maps, landmarks and buried treasure that makes “The Da Vinci Code” look like TOLSTOY. Remember how cleverly one clue led to the next in “National Treasure”? The sequel is more like CONNECT-THE-DOTS. And yes, I do continue to develop my HABIT of suddenly YELLING in the middle of a sentence.
I’m not a SUBTLE actor, and if you want a subtle movie, GET OUT OF MY FACE. This one’s about how my character, Benjamin Franklin Gates, learns that an ancestor collided with the John Wilkes Booth gang, who wanted him to decipher a page from Booth’s diary that may have been part of a TREASURE MAP.
I have to FIND IT because that will clear my great-great-grandfather of taking part in the Lincoln assassination. How does my finding treasure prove my ancestor had nothing to do with Lincoln’s killing? DON’T THINK SO MUCH, EGGBERT.
My girlfriend (Diane Kruger) and I have broken up. So naturally she helps me do some spectral imaging of Booth’s papers to discover a SECRET CODE.
Ed Harris plays a BAD GUY who keeps SHOOTING AT ME. When he has the means to track everything I do without my knowing about it, instead I get in a CAR CHASE with him in London for NO REASON. If you have ever been to London and noticed that you couldn’t have a car chase that lasted more than 14 seconds because of traffic, STAY AWAY FROM MY MOVIE, EINSTEIN.
During the car chase, we all engage in WITTY REPARTEE like this: “They’re getting closer!” “What’s their problem?” Later, Harris gets to say, with a straight face, “You try any funny business, I guarantee you people are gonna get hurt!” You don’t like it? Go see a COEN BROTHERS movie, BRAINIAC.
I read an inscription at a replica of the Statue of Liberty in Paris about “resolute twins” and INSTANTLY figure out that this is a CODED REFERENCE to a desk of Queen Victoria’s and the desk of the American president. Naturally, the priceless royal artifact is kept in Buckingham Palace, ALONE AND UNGUARDED, so I get to SPEND ALL THE TIME I WANT with it to figure out the next clue.
Later, I will discover that ANYONE who knows ANYONE who works in THE WHITE HOUSE can have as much time as he wants to GO POKING AROUND IN THE PRESIDENT’S DESK. Yes, THAT president. I’m not talking about the president of HAIR CLUB FOR MEN.
I need lots of supplies for this mission, like LAME ONE-LINERS and EXPOSITION, which are supplied respectively by my sidekick, Riley (Justin Bartha), and my history expert dad (Jon Voight). My mom, who hasn’t talked to my dad in years, turns out to be HELEN MIRREN, meaning this is the worst movie to star three or more Oscar winners since “AIRPORT FRICKIN’ ’77.”
More than AN HOUR into the movie, we all start yammering about a SECRET BOOK KNOWN ONLY TO PRESIDENTS that has all the riddles of the country in it, like the missing minutes from the Watergate tapes and the real deal on the Kennedy assassination. How can this stuff remain secret when control of the White House keeps flipping between OPPOSING PARTIES? You’re not LISTENING to me, GENIUS. Check your BRAINBOX at the DOOR.
So I have to talk to the PRESIDENT. Did you know anyone wearing a TUXEDO can sneak into one of his FANCY PARTIES, walk up to him and get his UNDIVIDED ATTENTION for AS LONG AS YOU WANT? If you’re nice to him, you can get him to follow you, ALONE, into some SECRET CAVES under MOUNT VERNON.
When we all wind up under MOUNT RUSHMORE, there are lots of golden idols and elaborate booby traps and perilous passageways and giant boulders rolling across doorways. You may think you’ve already seen “RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK,” but you haven’t seen anything until you’ve seen it remade in GLORIOUS MORONORAMA.
NATIONAL TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS* 1/2National calamity.Running time: 124 minutes. Rated PG (mild action violence). At the 84th Street, the Orpheum, the Kips Bay, others.