Popcorn chic

National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets is junk cinema at its finest. This is the movie equivalent to one of those toys you get out of a vending machine when you’re a kid. It’s fun while you’re there, but pretty forgettable otherwise.

Here we find Nicholas Cage reprising his role of Nicholas Cage playing the same character as in every other movie he’s in, but this time going by the nickname of Benjamin Franklin Gates. The mere cheesiness of his name pretty much defines his role in life as one who solves convoluted government-conspiracy-related puzzles. What luck then that he finds himself in this movie.

Still riding on their high from the first movie, we come in on Nick and his lady in a domestic dispute, their wise-cracking sidekick seriously owing on taxes he neglected to pay, and an ancient family member up the family tree suddenly being revealed to being a potential co-conspirator in the Abraham Lincoln assassination. Knowing that his ancestors are just as upstanding, truthful, and honest as himself, Cage proceeds to take off his leather glove, slap the accuser Ed Harris across the face, and challenges him to a duel. I made that last part up, but it would’ve been way more awesome than what really happened.

After this point, there’ll be some spoilers introduced, so before I go down that road, I’ll just say that this is standard Bruckheimer fare, and a fun little romp if you don’t over think it too much. If you DON’T watch it, you’re not missing too much either. Now, to the spoilers.

Ed Harris introduces some long-lost artifact for the express purpose of goading Cage into seeking out and then finding the lost city of gold. This city of legend was first witnessed by a European who, stranded on the coast of Florida, was taken in by Native Americans in the area who took him to the city of gold…which we ultimately discover is underground. The ground that it’s under is in the Black Hills of South Dakota. A quick look at any map of the U.S., combined with a grade-school grasp of the many different Native American tribes across the U.S. back during very early European settlement, plus the sheer distance when you’re pretty much on foot, and this scenario is completely and utterly ridiculous. (or, the natives from the Florida area had some awesome summer homes up north and had a mastery of air travel that has since been lost to the ravages of history) Oh, and they fairly easily and with minimal setup manage to break into Buckingham Palace AND the Oval Office, AND…AND…temporarily kidnap the President. Yeah, that’s happening.