I have expressed nervousness over the coming Da Vinci Code movie but when I read Roger Ebert’s review of National Treasure, my hopes are renewed:

That I have read the book [The Da Vinci Code] is not a cause for celebration. It is inelegant, pedestrian writing in service of a plot that sets up cliff-hangers like clockwork, resolves them with improbable escapes and leads us breathlessly to a disappointing anticlimax. I should read a potboiler like The Da Vinci Code every once in a while, just to remind myself that life is too short to read books like The Da Vinci Code.

Then again, Ebert is a critic who is trained to thing critically and recognizes a snow job when he sees it. John and Jane A. Merican are trained (by TV and advertisers) specifically NOT to think critically and buy snow jobs on a regular basis.

Now, about National Treasure he has a classic comment: “‘National Treasure’ is so silly that the Monty Python version could use the same screenplay, line for line.” That is saying a lot about the movie.