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National Treasure: Book Of Secrets Reviewed By Rich Drees
The film starts off strong enough with an historically-based mystery to be unraveled. In this case, our returning hero Ben Gates (Nicholas Cage) has been publically confronted (by Ed Harris who seems to be doing his best to stay interested in a role he has played in too many other films) with seemingly irrefutable proof that an ancestor actively participated in the conspiracy to assassinate President Lincoln. Along with his partner Riley (Justin Bartha), his now ex-girlfriend Abigail (Diane Kruger) and his father (John Voight), Ben tries to unravel a series of clues that takes them from Paris to Buckingham Palace and then back to the United States to kidnap the President! But once the plot starts rolling, one sequence tumbles into the next until the whole film is such a crazy avalanche that it is not until you are out of the theater and halfway home before you realize that the third act revelations seemingly have nothing to do with the initial premise.
The screenplay
by husband and wife writing team of Cormac and Marianne Wibberley
functions well enough, mixing just the right amount of historical
fact with its conspiracy theory fiction. Things like a book that is
passed from President to President that holds all the secrets of the
country certainly sounds plausible as it is presented here, while
also serving to set up a third film. Still, there are some logic
holes that become glaringly obvious once one stops and thinks about
it. The film’s nominal villain ultimately presents a motivation for
naming Ben’s ancestor as a Lincoln assassination co-conspirator is
unforgivably weak. The distance between Florida and the Black Hills
of South Dakota also presents an unaddressed problem to one of the
film’s plot points, as does the date of Lincoln’s assassination
compared to when the Statue of Liberty was built.
But if the script doesn’t quite make sense and the quips aren’t quiet as breezy as they were the first time around, at least it handles its characters well. Jon Voight is given much more to do in this film than the previous one, and it is great to see an actor of Voight’s years unafraid to take on a more physical role. The further exploration of Ben and his father’s rocky past relationship is given a further dimension in the form of Helen Mirren as Ben’s divorced mother. Mirren and Voight share a great chemistry and hopefully the inevitable third film will find a way to further exploit it.
While not perfect, National Treasure: Book Of Secrets is a pretty good way for a family to spend some time at the movies. The violence is neither too bloody and gratuitous or cartoony and unreal. There’s no bad language for parents to worry about and the thrills and adventure should be enough to keep both kids and adults entertained. |
National Treasure: Book Of Secrets is the cinematic equivalent
of a big banana split. It is sweet to the taste and melts away
almost quicker than you can finish it. You know that it is empty
calories, no nutritional value at all, but it’s a tasty guilty
pleasure that doesn’t really hurt to have slid into one’s film diet
every now and then.