Entertaining But Essentially the Same as the Original -- Lots of Artifacts, Clues and Car Chases

Rating: 6/10 (5 January 2008)

The treasure hunters are at it again, except this time the reason for accessing an ancient lost treasure of gold is not for it's monetary value, which seems downright Un-American. It is to exonerate a recent injustice in which an ancestor of Nicholas Cage is wrongfully determined to have been involved with the assassination of President Lincoln in 1865. So now Cage has to get a treasure to clear his family! Even though this treasure is probably worth 100 Billion dollars, that's not the point!
Overall, it is almost exactly the same idea as the first movie, except it's a different treasure with different clues and different artifacts, but rings a little bit like deja-vu all over again. Despite some of the absolutely preposterous tasks, such as breaking into Buckingham Palace in London and later the Oval Office in Washington DC, not to mention kidnapping the President of the United States(!), it still has its entertainment value, sort of a cross between Indiana Jones, the Da Vinci Code and the Hardy Boys.
This movie has all the elements of the original. The discovery of secret documents and artifacts. Deciphering codes from monuments and arcane objects, some from various parts of the world. Sneaking into the highest-security areas of the Western World. And between all these episodes are the usual car chases and other catastrophes that continually threaten our merry band of heroes from obtaining their treasure. And of course there is the adversarial band of baddies after the same treasure, this time headed by Ed Harris. It's all here.
Because the car chases and catastrophes are repeated so similarly to the first movie, I wonder if they were really needed. I would have liked to hear more about the artifacts themselves, their origins, and their significance. I think I would have found the story more compelling if this modern-day Indiana Jones shtick could have done more with the history and mystery and less with the car chases. Still acceptably entertaining and at least you won't feel like you want your two hours back, let alone your ten bucks. But don't expect any twists or turns that didn't already occur in the first movie. And the intellectual aspects are kept to a minimum so as not to offend any of the adolescent movie-going public.