The words that come to mind is "Cash Cow"

Rating: 4/10 (30 April 2008)

Alright so I'm not a big fan of the first NT movie but I still rated it 6 out of 10 back then. I did this because the "hunt" in that movie was entertaining with a few glimpse or originality here and there which made parts of it interesting.
The problem is, NT was already built on a borrowed concept, standing on the shoulders of The DaVinci Code it knew it had an audience and admirably tried to include more action and free it from religion. Voila, you got National Treasure.
Now you got a hit on your hands and you know you have to milk it and it better be fast because it wasn't THAT big of a hit, people might not remember it in say, 4 years. I then imagine you split up the workload for the script of the movie like this: 1 guy thinks of funny clues, 1 guy thinks of some extra background story for the characters and the dialogue they have George Lucas write, because let's face it, he's cheap.
Finally you put all 3 into the same Word document and you send it straight to production because damn it, it's milking time. The director probably asks for a few re-writes before the studio says "that's it, go with it". I'm not sure if he tries to salvage the script in any way because as it's apparent to us, the acting in this movie is non-existing. Finally the thing get's edited and every scene gets as much dialogue and story cut out because of how awful it is.
Seriously, those of you saying Jon Voigt or Helen Mirren do a good job in this movie, come on. They are both known as serious good actors and that's why people try to justify parts of this movie by accentuating them but the truth is they showed up, slept through it and got paid. Yes, it's that kind of movie! This movie relies on people liking half-asses put together "puzzles" and even more so on hard cut in editing. I am not surprised another one is in the making at all but with this on being based on such a thin story I can't see how the 3rd one can avoid complete disaster. Ow don't worry it will still make money.
4 out 10 because it wasn't a total waste of time but really close to it, mind you.