I heard you were coming so I baked you a cake

As it is currently the Jewish holiday of Asian-Food-and-Movies, my brothers, the eldest's better half, a step-brother and a family friend all went to the movies (preceded by Thai food.) What, you ask, did we watch? National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets.

I should preface this by mentioning that I have seen National Treasure 1: There is a Treasure Map on the Back of the Declaration of Independence (spoiler alert!) and I adored it. Yeah, it was bad, but it was also GREAT. A fabulous pop movie, it had clever direction, relatively acceptable script, and a tight, if implausible, plot. Also, it was about AMERICAN HISTORY. What more could your average American movie-goer ask for?

When apparently Jerry Bruckheimer and John Turtletaub thought that the average American movie-goer was asking for a bloated film with an implausible AND discombobulated screenplay, because thats what National Treasure 2: Disaster Bugaloo was made of. Its not that I don't like outrageously impossible situations, because I do. And the problem wasn't the patently false action scenes, because hello, Die Hard 4? Best movie of the year by my vote. But this movie... it didn't DO anything! Nothing happened! No plotlines were resolved!

Seriously, here's what happens: Nicholas Cage's treasure-hunting character (named Ben Gates) is astonished and horrified to find out that his ancestor might have been a conspirator of John Wilkes Booth, Lincoln-killer. Gates and his trusty sidekick and German GF pay a visit to the French Statue of Liberty, kidnap the president, and discover an ancient Aztec city of gold (in South Dakota! Because of course there were Aztecs there), which somehow is supposed to absolve his great-great-great-great-grandfather. Like, "sure, maybe he did help kill one of America's favorite presidents, but maybe he didn't! That great huge pile of GOLD you uncovered is leading me to say not." Whatever.

Sorry, its just that I like my bad movies to be awesome, and this one just sucked. I'm actually really angry about that.