Nicholas Cage and the Guilty Pleasure of Doom

Rating: 7/10 (2 June 2008)

Not satisfied with stealing the Declaration of Independence last time around, half way through this movie Nicholas Cage says in that trademark drawl of his the words: "I'm going to kidnap the President of the United States." In the preceding hour he's not only broken into Buckingham Palace but the Oval Office as well and in the ensuing hour he discovers a top secret diary in the Library of Congress and a Pre-Columbian temple buried in a cave network beneath Mount Rushmore. You can only wonder where they're going to go when the inevitable third entry comes around in 2011, but I wouldn't put it past them kidnapping the Pope and finding Atlantis underneath the Toronto Skydome. As you can probably tell then, National Treasure: Book of Secrets is preposterous guff, but it nevertheless possesses a sense of charm and a feeling of urgency that was lacking from its predecessor.
First off the good news, the franchise has improved. The original National Treasure wasn't particularly strong and smelt too strongly of a cross between Indiana Jones and the Da Vinci Code designed purely to cash in on the recent success of Dan Brown's novel. This second instalment however is a lot more fun, the two hour running time zipping past at a remarkable pace as the cast are hurtled from America to France, to England and then back again in a globe trotting adventure to locate a mythical lost city of gold (sorry Dr. Jones they beat you to it). Its a good thing too, if it slowed down for a second there'd be more opportunities to pick up the numerous plot holes - how this is all going to clear the name of Ben Gates's long dead ancestors for instance is never explained particularly well. Neither is why it's so remarkably easy for a history Professor to keep avoiding the CIA.
Carbon copy of an established original it may be then but National Treasure 2 still packs in enough outlandish stupidity, dizzying set pieces and intriguing historical trivia to have it ear marked as a guilty pleasure. Ever wanted to know how to use a London traffic camera to record a vital piece of evidence while in the middle of a car chase? This is the film for you. As an added bonus it's also the most animated that Nicholas Cage has been in years, avoiding his recent tendency to phone things in by playing Ben Gates with just the right mixture of rebellious humour and deadpan seriousness. Granted, it's just a bit too obvious where all the chief inspirations have come from but even so, National Treasure 2 is entertaining enough to warrant a night in front of the television with your brain switched off.
And at least the Lost City of Gold in this movie doesn't have a flying saucer buried in it.