Stupidly Smart
posted on Tuesday, January 08, 2008 in Movie Reviews
How to enjoy National Treasure: Book of Secrets - stop yourself from asking any questions. Any rational thought applied to this film will reveal a myriad of errors and nonsensical plot contrivances. That doesn’t make the film totally unwatchable, since a person can just turn off and enjoy the over-the-top adventuring that the characters do, but it’s kind of funny that a film about smart people can be so incredibly dumb. The Gates family has a new quest: to the clear the name of their ancestor, whose name appears on a page of John Wilkes Booth’s diary, implicating him in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Benjamin Gates decides that the best way to fulfill the quest is to find a treasure that will confirm his ancestor’s innocence. This leads him and his friends around the world, breaking into national monuments in order to seek out clues that will bring them to the location of the said treasure.
If that plot summary doesn’t make any sense to you, don’t worry. That’s really just the way it is. This is the kind of logic you have to embrace if you are to enjoy this film: “I need to clear my great-great-grandfather’s name; therefore, I will commit several crimes in pursuit of a treasure that, via a tenuous grasp of reasoning and evidence, will magically prove his innocence.” The script is peppered with factoids and trivia concerning history, giving it a semblance of intelligence, but when you get past that, you’re pretty much left with a story that doesn’t make any sense.
The decisions and conclusions that the characters make in the film are absolutely mind-boggling. Not because it’s complex or difficult to understand, but because there is absolutely no logic applied to them. They cover it up with a lot of fast-talk and gags, and try to distract us with some pretty crazy situations, but there’s just no hiding how completely devoid of reasoning this film is.
But again, if you can just completely ignore that, there are some things to enjoy. Those crazy situations that the film tries to distract the audience with are actually pretty cool. They’ve managed to work in some impressive locations that make for some dramatic high adventuring. And if you can forgive the characters for their dumb decisions, you might be able to enjoy their crazy antics.
The cast is entertaining enough. Jon Voight and Helen Mirren look like they’re having a lot of fun. Nicolas Cage doesn’t exactly turn in an Oscar worthy performance, but this film hardly calls for it. Diane Kruger is perfectly watchable. Ed Harris is always good, even though his character’s motivations are completely unclear. The highlight of this cast is Justin Bartha, who keeps this film rolling with his excellent timing and delivery.
National Treasure: Book of Secrets is fun sometimes, but it’s dumb fun. Really dumb fun. Normally, that would be enough for a slight recommendation, but in this case, the dumb is so pervasive and so absolutely annoying that it just doesn’t seem worth it.
My Rating:
Do you agree with this rating? Submit your own.
Read User Reviews
I'm looking for National Treasure: Book of Secrets.
PLDT Watchpad
