National Treasure: Book of Secrets (The Good, The Not So Good, and The Really Bad)

Rating: 5/10 (29 December 2007)

***MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS***
When National Treasure: Book of Secrets was near release, my two best friends were going crazy with anticipation. They loved the 1st movie, though they never really said why, just "it was awesome".... not very descriptive on there part. So we went to the midnight showing, and I will say my expectations weren't that high. Turns out I was right not to expect much.
Lets start with the good. The best part of the whole movie was the Goofy short before the movie. Not only was everyone laughing, it really set a good mood for the rest of the film. If you didn't like the film, at least you could think about the short to make you happy. I myself want to get into animation for a career. I'm not a fan of Disney cartoons (I actually hate a lot of them), but the fact that shorts in movies are coming back really warms my heart. The last time I remember shorts in movies were the Roger Rabbit shorts, and those were great. I REALLY hope to see more stuff like this in the future from other studios.
Next is the not so good. Though the treasure itself was interesting (city of gold, cool) you kinda feel like there holding information back from you. They find the city, have teams explore it, and there obviously gonna get some major historical information.... to bad you never actually get to know what that information is. They did the same thing in the last movie.
We got a treasure. "Ok, what is the treasure?" We're not gonna tell you. "Um... well... what do we get to know about the treasure?" Just that it's hidden and Nic Cage has to find it. "When they do find it, will we learn anything about it, like what it is and how it will affect our knowledge of history?" Nope. "Oh... what the heck?"
Another thing that I didn't feel good about in this movie was the character Abigail Chase. So in the first movie, Ben spends his whole life looking for the treasure, and then finally does at the end with his 2 friends. He gets rich for finding it and buys house to live in with girlfriend. Then she dumps him and she kicks him out of HIS house? Is she a w****?
Finally, the really bad.... Riley. I'm sorry, but I couldn't not find him funny. I'm actually getting sick of one liners. People have seem to forgotten that there's more then one way to tell a joke. Everything nowadays is one liners. What ever happened to really funny facial expressions, Or someone getting hurt in a really funny way? Why does every sidekick need to be a goofy smart mouth who says dumb stuff that only a small amount of people find funny but then turns out to be a genius?
I'm also getting sick of people saying to just have fun with it. Well what if someone didn't think it was fun, would he have to put on a fake smile throughout the remainder of the film? Just because YOU think it was fun, doesn't mean so did everyone else.
All in all, it was OK, but nothing too special. If you have nothing better to do, this is an OK rental movie. The goofy short is the best part, so if anything go for that.
5/10