Kill Riley Poole!

Rating: 3/10 (7 May 2008)

I kind of liked the first installment of National Treasure. It was nothing more but enjoyable escapism; sort of an Indiana Jones for kids.
But in this sequel it feels like we've seen it all before. For the life of me, I can't understand why they kept Riley Poole as the comic relief side kick. That character is just plain Jar-Jar-Binks-terrible. I suppose that his plethora of lines are supposed to be witty, but they just made me want to stab him in the neck with a No. 2 pencil. In all fairness, the overall dialogue sucks and blows at the same time, which I thought was a physical impossibility.
But my issues with Poole aside, the main problem with this film I had with this film is that I felt it didn't have a strong enough "hook". Honestly, I couldn't care less if Nicolas Cage's great-grandfather (or whatever the hell it was) is accused of being complicit in a murder committed about 150 years ago, and they have to find a secret something in order to clear his name. Now I sort of understand why George Lucas said that the long gap between Indy 3 & 4 was due to the fact that they couldn't find a strong enough McGuffin around which the story revolves.
I'm just glad I didn't pay to see this movie.