What’s this all about?
Treasure hunting know-it-all Benjamin Franklin Gates is back to wreck the country, this time to prove that his great, great grandfather wasn’t a conspirator in the Abraham Lincoln assassination, you know, because his family name would be ruined if that kind of thing got out.
Anyway, he and the entire cast of the first film get chased around by Ed Harris until they stumble upon the lost city of gold, located, naturally, in South Dakota, in a huge underground cave.
A bunch of improbable underground machines that have been in place for hundreds of years suddenly fall apart when Nick and his merry band of idiots interact with them.
It’s pretty much the first movie, but without the “steal the Declaration of Independence” tagline.
Who is Nick in this one?
He’s “Benjamin Franklin Gates,” again, and he plays him like a know-it-all jerk, just like in the first film.
Who else is in this one?
I think the entire principal cast from the first films returned. I won’t detail them all here, but John Voight got a bigger role this time around.
Helen Mirren (The Queen) joins the cast as Nick’s Mom. Her only character traits are that she hates Nick’s Dad, and is bitchy. I guess someone thought John Voight needed a love interest. She’s fine.
Ed Harris (the bad guy from The Rock) plays “Mitch Wilkinson,” a guy with a Southern accent for the first act of the film, but no accent for the rest. His grandpappy (or something like that) was part of a secret organization that sabotaged the Union war effort during the Civil War. They were so secret that all of the members wore a golden pin with the initials of their club on it. Sort of like a “MAGA” hat, I guess.
He’s the bad guy in this picture. Ed Harris is a great actor. This is not one of his great roles.
Did you see that?
This film is full of “high tech” stuff that was actually fairly accurate and possible in 2007. It’s a little bit shocking how much technology has moved in the intervening 18 years. We see John Voight amazed that a picture can be sent from one cell phone to another (granted, he’s a doddering old man), we see a cell phone get cloned, and we see all sorts of tech cobbled together to achieve the mission of, well, whatever the mission was. At any rate, all of it was more or less possible.
One scene in particular, though, stood out. Nick and his sidekick need to examine the Île aux Cygnes, a Statue of Liberty replica in Paris. To accomplish this, Nick’s sidekick attaches a camera to a very large, very clunky remote controlled model helicopter, and flies it around the statue.
A gobsmacked pair of Parisian cops see this, and say (in English, of course) “What he is doing is impossible!” This task could have been easily achieved with a child’s toy drone in 2025. Seeing how amazed the cops, and the other Parisians were upon seeing a remote controlled helicopter was quite a flashback. -Michael
Apparently there are hidden underground Aztec pyramids under mount Rushmore in gigantic caverns. Do I really need to say any more? It was a sight. Not really of course, but a sight. -Sarah
What were Nick’s best parts?
This is a hard one. Most of Nick’s scenes were fine, a few were terrible, but none stood out as great. I guess the best was a scene set at the White House Easter Egg Hunt in which a young child calls out the recent claims that Nick’s ancestor took part in the Lincoln assaination plot. Nick attempts to defend his relative’s, and his own honor, but soon finds himself in an awkward argument with an irritating child. Nick conveyed the frustration and helplessness of the situation well. -Michael
There was a scene where Nick staged a fake fight with his wife. I am unclear if they were recently divorced or going through the separation, but it was one of those. Anyway, the fight was to get detained in Buckingham palace so they could break out of the holding cells and sneak a little bit of time with the queen’s desk. This movie took place before the queen died of course. While the premise of what they were doing was crazy unrealistic, the fight was fabulous and right on. I really enjoyed it. And the unspoken communication that took place between them to say this was fake, even though they were both screaming was very well done. -Sarah
What were Nick’s worst parts?
There’s a scene in which Nick and his wife have to “make a scene” at a British palace (the same scene mentioned by Sarah, above). To accomplish this, Nick just shouts a bunch of English tropes while talking in a faked British accent. It’s unclear why he thinks being insulting to the British will be more effective than just being his normal, loud boorish self. It’s the kind of thing your drunk father-in-law would do at Thanksgiving dinner to embarrass everyone. That’s not just me, right?
Anyway, both Nick’s sidekick and his wife comment on how brilliant his performance was. It most certainly was not. -Michael
I have a hard time picking a specific bad scene. Nick was fairly consistent throughout the movie. None of it was really bad, it just wasn’t good enough to save the issues with the plot. There was this one scene at the end where he was holding a huge wooden spoke wheel while the room was filling with water to let his family escape when he slipped and was accidentally rushed through the door. The acting for that bit was a bit over the top. Of course how can one relate to the situation though, either? -Sarah
How was the movie?
One of my godchildren came over for a visit tonight, and when we mentioned this film, they said, “I know I’ve seen that movie, but I can’t tell you a single thing about it.”
I watched this movie less than 48 hours ago, and I’ve forgotten about 80% of it. This is a bad movie. It’s not a “so bad that it’s good” movie. It somehow manages to be bland and unmemorable while exploding nearly everything. -Michael
It was exactly what I expected after having seen the first movie. You have to let go of too much logic and reality for me for these films, but if you liked the first one, you’ll like this one too. -Sarah
Yeah, but did you like it?
Nope. It’s a dumb movie with no redeeming value. -Michael
I enjoyed it more than the first, but I had much lower expectations. -Sarah
Where can I watch it?
You can rent it on Amazon Prime.
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