In National Treasure: Book of Secrets, Nicolas Cage unlocks century-old puzzle boxes in the time it takes me to write "century-old puzzle boxes."
Since when did treasure hunter leap-frog over movie critic as easiest job ever?
Here is a sequel in which impossibly dense clues are buried for centuries and deciphered with the ease in which you order a latte.
I know these people are all supposed to be smart, well-educated, the best of the best.
But halfway through the movie, Cage's archeological alter-ego Benjamin Gates is kidnapping the U.S. president (Bruce Greenwood -- a Canadian, of course) without breaking a sweat.
If I was him, I'd at least be worried about losing my toupee.
But oh no -- whether Gates is outwitting law enforcement agencies, cracking open a desk in the Oval Office or leading a car chase through the streets of London, he seems about as flustered as a guy who can't figure out where he parked.
Remember Indiana Jones? Tall guy? Hat? Bullwhip? Thing is, he almost always lost. The Ark of the Covenant? Stored away in a crate. The Holy Grail? Buried under a mountain.
The only thing he could ever really be counted on for was being punched or shot or sometimes both.
That made him, amid all the high adventure, charmingly human -- a quality sorely missing here.
But isn't National Treasure all in good fun, you say?
All in good crap, I say.
Book of Secrets isn't just outlandish or ludicrous -- these are embraceable qualities -- but stupefying lazy.
Just consider the plot, which kicks off when a missing page from the diary of John Wilkes Booth mysteriously implicates Ben's great-great grandfather in the assassination plot against Abraham Lincoln.
Ed Harris -- a fine actor apparently in the market for a vacation property -- plays the villain, Wilkinson.
Yes, the movie is really that obvious.
Later, their quest turns to the so-called Book of Secrets -- a hyper-secretive diary passed down from president to president -- and eventually ropes in Ben's estranged mother, played by Helen Mirren, cashing out after last year's Oscar win.
Inspired casting? More like wonky casting -- this may be the most improbable family unit since Sean Connery, Dustin Hoffman and Matthew Broderick played members of the same gene pool in 1989's Family Business.
Mirren, trooper that she is, even gets into the action herself -- swinging Princess Leia-style over a chasm -- as everything erupts in a cacophony of underground effects, explosions, death traps and narrow escapes.
Sound familiar?
Yes, it's more or less the end of the first National Treasure.
And, I'm guessing, a preview of what's to come for the inevitable, regrettable National Treasure 3.
(This film is rated PG)
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