By Robert W. Hammerle

First the good news about "Fools Gold." It is not as insipidly moronic as the previews would lead you to believe. Close, admittedly, but watchable for those who secretly enjoy TV specials with Victoria's Secrets models or anything involving professional football cheerleaders. (It is now clear that my exchange student, "Z", does!)

And while I hate to use the phrase "intellectual honesty" and "Fool's Gold" in the same sentence, it avoids any of the idiotic pretensions that made the wildly successful "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" so wretched. Simply put, unlike "Treasure", this movie is about stupid people who actually celebrate their idiocy.

And what better stars to play in such a movie than the two bubble headed bleached blonds, Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson. While there is some passing reference to Ms. Hudson's character pursuing a PhD, it is abundantly clear from the beginning that these two couldn't pass an SAT test if you allowed them to cheat.

However, McConaughey and Hudson come off as Doctor and Madam Curie compared to the characters played by Donald Sutherland and Alexis Dziena. Sutherland plays an enormously wealthy tycoon/yachtsman as if he is the reincarnation of Thurston Howell III (Jim Backus) in "Gilligan's Island." Ms. Dziena is simply embarrassing as his Paris Hilton-like socialite daughter who is so vapidly dippy that she is genuinely capable of giving even Ms. Hilton a bad name.

While largely irrelevant to the picture itself, the semblance of a plot revolves around McConaughey and Hudson, their marriage in tatters, finding a lost Spanish treasure off some Caribbean Island. A rap mogul by the name of Bigg Bunny (Kevin Hart) owns the island, and he proceeds to try to kill our heroes and steal the treasure for himself. Throw Ray Winstone into the mix as another crusty treasure hunter and you know where this movie is going from the very start. (For what it is worth, if you want to see what Mr. Winstone is capable of as an actor, then go rent "Sexy Beast" (2001) and "The Proposition" (2006).

Beyond its unpretentious honesty concerning the bottomless stupidity of its stars, the scenery saves this movie from itself. Filmed on location in Queensland, Australia, the gorgeous beach and island typography salvage this otherwise lamentable film in a fashion similar to a Hannah Montana-like Brooke Shields in "Blue Lagoon" (1980). Our stars are suitably buffed and partially clothed throughout, and who really wouldn't want to see Jacques Costeau and his crew on the "Calypso" scuba dive with the Victoria's Secret girls?