Well, I liked it.
It was just as corny and silly as the first one, which is just what I expected.
I had two questions about the chain of clues, though:
[spoiler]How did they know the exact spot where the eagle was on the rock?
What was “the hummingbird clue” that Mama Gates knew her son would get?[/spoiler]
National Treasure Two-Book of Secrets a.k.a. the dumbest movie I’ve seen in quite a while.
Save yourself the money and DON’T see this movie. The movie was dumb, actually, it was absurd. Ugh, I hated this…
To answer the first question, I think it was all just an accident. I have no idea how they ended up where they did (I mean, on that particular mound of rocks).
Yeah, it was pretty dumb. Better than the first one, but that’s not saying much. I got a free pass or else I wouldn’t have seen it. I’m glad I did though, because the best thing about it was an animated short that was shown before the movie, “How to Hook Up Your Home Theater” with Goofy.
As someone who’s married to an audio-video geek, I could well appreciate the jokes even if I didn’t understand every reference. Non-A/V geeks will find it very funny (judging by the laughter in the theater) but A/V geeks should be rolling in the aisles. Or maybe. My husband wasn’t with me so I have yet to hear from a true A/V geek to get their reaction.
I was entertained, but it went on for far too long.
I didn’t think Ed Harris made a very effective villian. His motivations were rather unclear. Sean Bean was much better in the first movie. And, as usual in movie-land, both female leads had the tendancy to become angry shrews.
I though the mother was a funny addition. Isn’t it explicitly stated in the first movie that she’s dead?
If it does well, we are all set up for the (next) sequel: National Treasure - Page 47
I just got back from seeing this movie. I really enjoyed the first movie, and I like that the characterizations were continued in this movie. However, I feel cheated by the decrease of different locations and clue hunting. The first movie had an old ship encased in ice, and several scenes of mounting excitement and clue deciphering. I honestly feel that there wasn’t as much of that in the sequel. I like that Nicolas Cage’s character is a super hero who has read some history books and can logically reason out clues.
One question about the legend told in the movie.
As I remember the story told early on, the former slave Esteban was shown the lost city of gold for saving the life of the chief of the Indian tribe in Florida, but was then unable to find his way back there. Were we supposed to understand that this tribe in Florida had a city of gold kept hidden in the what we now call the Black Hills of South Dakota?
As for the movie, it was entertaining enough, but really had the same plot as the first movie.
There’s a major question I had. I’ll box it since it contains spoilers
In the Presidents’ Book, Coolidge mentioned building Mount Rushmore to destroy the landmarks needed to find Cibola. But the hunters did not need those landmarks so what was Silent Cal talking about?
As a side note - anyone seen any screen shots of page 47 yet?
[QUOTE=Dewey Finn]
One question about the legend told in the movie.
As I remember the story told early on, the former slave Esteban was shown the lost city of gold for saving the life of the chief of the Indian tribe in Florida, but was then unable to find his way back there. Were we supposed to understand that this tribe in Florida had a city of gold kept hidden in the what we now call the Black Hills of South Dakota?
As for the movie, it was entertaining enough, but really had the same plot as the first movie.
[/QUOTE]
Let me explain about the real legend, and you can make up your own mind.
wiki:*It was fed by the castaways of Pánfilo de Narváez’s unsuccessful expedition to Florida in 1528, who, upon returning to New Spain, said that they had heard from the mouths of the Native Americans stories of cities with great riches. Only four men had survived that expedition. One was Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca who wrote Naufragios (Shipwrecks) in which he described his adventure on foot from the coast of Florida to the coast of Sinaloa in Mexico. One of the other three survivors was a Moor named Esteban, or Estevanico…Upon hearing the castaways’ tales of cities with limitless riches to the North of New Spain, Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza organized an expedition headed by the Franciscan monk Marcos de Niza, who took as his guide Estevanico. During the voyage, in a place called Vacapa (probably located somewhere around the state of Sonora) the monk sent Estevanico to scout ahead. A short while later, Estevanico met a monk who had heard stories from the natives about cities overflowing with riches.
When Marcos de Niza heard of this man, he supposed that the stories pertained to the “Seven Cities of Cíbola y Quivira.”
Estevanico did not wait for the friar, but instead continued travelling until he reached Háwikuh, now in New Mexico, where, at the hands of Native Americans, he supposedly met his death, and his companions were forced to flee.
Marcos de Niza returned to Mexico City and said that the expedition moved on even after the reported death of Estevanico. He claimed that they had seen a city very far away and greater than the great Tenochtitlan; in this city, the people used dishes of gold and silver, decorated their houses with turquoise, and had gigantic pearls, emeralds, and other beautiful gems.
It is now believed by many historians that the mica-inflected clay of the adobe pueblos may have created an optical illusion when inflamed by the setting sun. Thus fueling the tale of the “Seven Cities of Cíbola y Quivira.”*
The castaways walked all the way from Florida to Mexico. :eek: It was not in Florida that they supposedly encountered the legend.
[QUOTE=Saint Cad]
As a side note - anyone seen any screen shots of page 47 yet?
[/QUOTE]
Not that I can find, though Turtletaub gave this joke answer:
Late to the party, but I saw this dreadful film on a plane this week and wanted to ask a question about the “plot.”
Can someone explain what role the desks, built AFTER Lincoln’s death, had in the clue scheme. If the chain of the clues started with the missing page, how did they also include subsequent clues to items not crafted until later? I felt Cage made some effort to explain this, but it still didn’t make sense.