Random Musings - 3 geeks on life, the universe and everything.

National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets.

Written on August 10, 2008 at 3:13 pm about Films by Paradox

Let me begin by saying that I saw the first one and thought despite the fact it’s a lovechild of Indiana Jones (Which on a side note has now launched itself in a hydraulic powered flip off the tracks into a nearby barn, then spontaneously combusted) and despite the fact Disney has yet to grasp certain aspects of historical consistency I did like it in the mesmarised braindead sort of way. National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets is the same shit with a bigger budget, less enthusiasm, less mercenaries and more extinct native American populates.

More opinions to follow after this warning:

Spoilers May Follow.

You have been warned.

Like I said I have seen the previous National Treasure, and armed with that memory and the knowledge that this is a Disney movie, I watched its sequel without a great deal of expectations.

The first thing to catch my attention is that it contains gargantuan amounts of predictable adventure drivel to the point where I accurately predicted what was going to happen. A note to Disney here is diverse situations are the way forward. Now I know it’s slightly Clichéd but this really is Indiana Jones with the action sucked out.

However this aside there is two major problems with this film I want to write about here so I’ll get straight to them:

(1) it doesn’t make any sense

(2) The acting is awful.

On (1), I really don’t mean to nitpick on historical minutiae, hell I’d be happy to suspend disbelief for two hours on topics such as Lincoln’s assassination, Mayan treasures, Mount Rushmore geography, and all that other nonsense, no problem there. But the point of a treasure hunt movie is the ability to follow the main character in his struggle, perhaps struggle with him, see him figure things out and perhaps guess with him. This first movie achieved this to some degree. However its offspring sequel hasn’t lived up to its parent.

For the treasure hunting and clever figuring out of clues relies on consistence. The universe of the movie doesn’t have to be consistent with the world we live in, but it has to be consistent with itself. But the universe of this movie is like a great big fairy tale, and a fairy tale on Prozac at that. It quite often has the central character pulling white rabbits out of his sleeve whenever he needs them, they seem to crop up more often than not and have the power of Ret-Con.

Another qualm I have with this movie is action and drama, or more precisely the lack of. Yes the movie tries its hand at some drama, but it just doesn’t work. Things go pretty smoothly for the most part, into the Queen’s office, out of it again, oops, we are being chased, heck, let’s take a photo, oh no camera, ah, there is a traffic camera, yep and by the way, can you just hack into the computer and download the picture without a physical access terminal to the central network like we do, oh every day. Then it’s onto the next event, Repeat previous events getting into the oval office, then again when kidnapping the president.

Meanwhile the hero manages to MacGyver his way through an increasingly preposterous story. You get the feeling that it might have been better if he had not stolen the Constitution in part 1, so the writers would not have to top this. This in itself makes me cringe at the fact Disney announced a third and possibly a 4^th, meaning that by the time we get to the 4^th it will have escalated to the point where we are on mars fighting cybernetic Dinosaurs for gods pyjamas.

Back in the second all I have to say about the ‘villain’ is he’s lame and for the most part useless, not to mention somewhat incoherent.

None of the story really makes the slightest bit of sense, including the motivation of the hero. To clear the name of his great-great-grandfather he risks his life, the life of friends and loved ones, his own good name (Again) by kidnapping the president and even breaks into his own house to steal his ex-girlfriends card key so he can gain access to a page that may or may not contain the secret of ages all based on a hunch.

At this point it’s all becoming a steaming pile of nonsense aimed at people who really do not give a damn about storylines, consistence, and coherence and are possible into cranial intrusion. It requires the target audience to want nothing more than a lot of movement/action, high-tech gobbledygook, explosions, and cheap patriotism. Call me needy but I’d like an interesting, involving storyline, believable characters and humour, dark or otherwise.

However, as bad as the story was point number (2), the bad acting, I’m afraid to say, is even worse. Everybody in this movie was disappointing, even a non-actor like Kruger. Her career should end with this movie, over, out, finite. She cannot do it, and it’s not been for a lack of opportunity. If you had a consistent record of failure like hers in any regular job, you’d find yourself with a lot of spare time very soon.

But even the real actors here just make you cringe, Greenwood, Harris, Mirren, Voight, they all deliver horrible performances that seem to betray their lack of passion and their paycheck mentality. Since we know they *can* act, we have seen it before, but they just don’t in this movie. It seems to suggest to me there trying to convey the message “WE HATE THESE MOVIES, SAVE US, STOP WATCHING THEM!”. Keitel comes away without much harm, his part is so tiny, there just isn’t a lot of opportunity to screw things up too badly.

My Question at the end of this is why oh why do they keep making this fluff?

Because for some reason we attend it. We go there, drop our cash, and watch this nonsense. I am free of guilt here as my parents bought it and I got curious. But if you haven’t seen it, you and your money can still make a difference. Watch a good movie. There are plenty out there. In the DVD collections from 20 years ago.

And now I go to polish my tiny scrunched up cynical heart.