Kenneth Hite (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} princeofcairo) wrote,@ 2008-01-21 04:37:00 |
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Patriotic High-Fructose Corn Syrup, Now With Splenda
On its own recognizance, I'm going to issue National Treasure 2: Book of Silly Buggers a B-minus, even though the Masonic stuff was totally played down, and even though the ending just honest to God makes no earthly sense whatsoever.
The villain (an Ed Harris who seems occasionally struck by crippling shame of the "wasn't I up for an Oscar once?" sort that transiently hampers his sketchy characterization) is descended from Albert Pike, but the movie doesn't tell the viewer who he is -- it's essentially an Easter Egg for those of us who know and love him as one of the great usual suspects in old-school American conspiracy theory.1 And Harvey Keitel throws nary a Masonic high-sign throughout. But there's a shout-out to Calvin Coolidge, Awesome Secret Carpentry, a hilarious scene in which Nicolas Cage argues assassination theory with a ten-year-old boy, and Helen Mirren. Its basic skill in inventing plausible new conspiracy theories (harder than it looks) should not be underestimated -- the "President's Book" is estimably established.
And for fans of the first movie, there's three pell-mell caper sequences, instinctive melodramatic patriotism, even more bits where the characters call shenanigans on their own dialogue, Diane Kruger doing her uncanny increasingly-easy-on-the-eyes bit, and Nicolas Cage further encrazifying his "History Channel Tourette's Syndrome" idiot-savant character.
What this movie is, is a Jerry Bruckheimer class in making cinematic sausage. It doesn't bear close examination at all, but it surely ain't terrible, and it fries up good and greasy, which is just what you want on a cold winter's day.
[1] Alleged Luciferian Satanist, Illuminati stooge, treasonous agent of the British Royal Family, Knight of the Golden Circle, Founding Klansman, and prime impetus behind the Scottish Rite Masons in America -- the list goes on and on. And if Gen'ral Pike objects to being dragged into all this foolishness, he shouldn't have been writing anti-Catholic conspiracy theory when he was alive. Live by the innuendo, die by the innuendo, Confederate jackass.
On its own recognizance, I'm going to issue National Treasure 2: Book of Silly Buggers a B-minus, even though the Masonic stuff was totally played down, and even though the ending just honest to God makes no earthly sense whatsoever.
The villain (an Ed Harris who seems occasionally struck by crippling shame of the "wasn't I up for an Oscar once?" sort that transiently hampers his sketchy characterization) is descended from Albert Pike, but the movie doesn't tell the viewer who he is -- it's essentially an Easter Egg for those of us who know and love him as one of the great usual suspects in old-school American conspiracy theory.1 And Harvey Keitel throws nary a Masonic high-sign throughout. But there's a shout-out to Calvin Coolidge, Awesome Secret Carpentry, a hilarious scene in which Nicolas Cage argues assassination theory with a ten-year-old boy, and Helen Mirren. Its basic skill in inventing plausible new conspiracy theories (harder than it looks) should not be underestimated -- the "President's Book" is estimably established.
And for fans of the first movie, there's three pell-mell caper sequences, instinctive melodramatic patriotism, even more bits where the characters call shenanigans on their own dialogue, Diane Kruger doing her uncanny increasingly-easy-on-the-eyes bit, and Nicolas Cage further encrazifying his "History Channel Tourette's Syndrome" idiot-savant character.
What this movie is, is a Jerry Bruckheimer class in making cinematic sausage. It doesn't bear close examination at all, but it surely ain't terrible, and it fries up good and greasy, which is just what you want on a cold winter's day.
[1] Alleged Luciferian Satanist, Illuminati stooge, treasonous agent of the British Royal Family, Knight of the Golden Circle, Founding Klansman, and prime impetus behind the Scottish Rite Masons in America -- the list goes on and on. And if Gen'ral Pike objects to being dragged into all this foolishness, he shouldn't have been writing anti-Catholic conspiracy theory when he was alive. Live by the innuendo, die by the innuendo, Confederate jackass.
