Pointless, boring sequel that's pretty much a waste of everybody's time

Rating: 2/10 (4 June 2008)

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage) and his father Patrick (Jon Voight) continue to teach the history of American forefathers. But one day a general by the name of Mitch Wilkinson (Ed Harris) calls the good name of Ben's grand-father into question, claiming he was in on Lincoln's assassination. Unable to accept such a slant on his grandad's name, Ben sets out to find the three pieces of a piece of paper that will prove his innocence. His quest takes him to three corners of the globe, including his native America, France and London. Along the way, Patrick is forced to reconcile with Ben's mother Emily (Helen Mirren) and Ben must reconcile with his love interest from the previous film Abigail (Diane Kruger) as well as his friend Riley (Justin Bertha) all whilst being pursued by FBI Agent Sadusky (Harvey Keitel.) It all builds up to an 'explosive' finale where Ben must kidnap the president (Bruce Greenwood.)
Critics have been pretty unanimous with their condemnation of this unnecessary sequel to the only marginally enjoyable 2004 film National Treasure. But this big, sloppy mess only serves to make that film look like a masterpiece.
An overlong, overblown, totally boring piece, despite a slick car chase action sequence filmed in London, the weak, apathetic plot and lame script cause you to lose interest very quickly indeed, meaning before any other hot action can creep up towards the end, you've either fallen asleep or are clinging on by a thread. It says a lot that such a nifty cast list, from Cage to Keitel, all seem as bored as the audience, with no real passion for the film emerging from any of them, definitely one they all seem to have just done for the paycheque. In charge of such a sinking ship of a script, director Jon Turtletaub can only do his best to guide the awful mess in the best direction he can, which isn't very well at all.
Hopefully, this will mark the end of Cage's sub par Indiana Jones impression once and for all. *