National Treasure: Book of Secrets

As promised, I am back with my take on the sequel to last month’s movie I covered, National Treasure, with 2007’s National Treasure: Book of Secrets (trailer). Why would there be a sequel when the first movie had such a happy ending you ask? That is because all it takes is some simple lines of dialogue and a couple quick minutes of setup to erase all the happy endings in Hollywood and establish a new conflict to conquer in a sequel.

How far has the cast come after earning their share of the mammoth treasure haul from the first movie? Well, Benjamin Gates (Nicolas Cage) and Abigail (Diane Kruger) start the film fresh off a breakup. Riley (Justin Bartha) has his share of the treasure haul embezzled by a greedy accountant and Patrick Gates (Jon Voight) has his family’s legacy accused of treason by newcomer antagonist Mitch Wilkinson (Ed Harris). Recall how Gates had an ancestor in the last film that had direct ties with the founding fathers? Turns out there was another Gates ancestor who had ties to a legendary treasure left behind by John Wilkes Booth during his attempted escape from authorities after murdering President Lincoln. Wilkinson’s accusation leads the Gates family along with Riley and Abigail to track down Booth’s treasure and clear their family’s good name!

From here Book of Secrets follows the same beats as the previous film. Nicolas Cage once again uses his one-of-a-kind couth to deduce riddles and clues that take his party across the globe to DC, Paris, London and finally finishing off their quest at Mt. Rushmore. Props to the filmmakers for once again sprinkling nonstop history facts throughout the film that the history nut in me absolutely ate up. To complete the established formula of the first film, expect several WTF/yeah right moments/stunts throughout. The biggest eyebrow-raiser is when the Gates family concludes that in order to uncover the next clue that they have to kidnap the President of the United States (Bruce Greenwood). If that is not ridiculous enough, the way it all plays out is more laughably absurd, but in a hilariously entertaining way.

I will once again give props to Cage for nailing the over-the-top, yet affable Benjamin Gates persona. The rest of the supporting cast brings it too and all gel together for yet another fun treasure hunt film. Other random little bits I want to mention is a quick shoutout to a minor periphery character, Connor (Ty Burrell). He rocks in the couple of scenes he is in! I want to be a part of the annual White House Easter Egg hunt! Those bunnies look far more happier than the one in Mallrats. Like the previous film, Book of Secrets likes to show off the latest tech and gadgets they have available. For a movie filmed in 2006, the cast is shown throughout showing off the latest features of their fancy flip phones that are equipped with a camera so they can send pics to each other. My oh my, how far phones have come in a decade. I bet the President’s Secret Book really does exist, and if I somehow stumble across it I swear I will not be like Benjamin Gates and quickly brush past the JFK assassination chapter like he does when Riley points it out with his retort being the cliché “there’s no time” excuse!

The Book of Secrets BluRay is stacked with extra features just like the last one. If you are an extra feature junkie like me, then you have probably seen some movies include various forms of feature-length pop-up factoids. This BluRay has a really enhanced version of that called Book of History where there is a lot of interactive ‘fact or fiction’ history questions posed at you and the film keeps track of your score throughout. I would have stuck with it for the whole film if I did not already watch it a second time with the audio commentary with director Jon Turteltaub and actor Jon Voight. Like Turteltaub’s last commentary, he came prepared with tons of facts and insights from the production process and he peppers in many little history bits throughout. Voight is amusing to listen to because he only occasionally chimes in every few scenes with, ‘Wow, what a movie!’

After the feature-length extras, there are an ten additional extra features totaling just under an hour and a half. There are a ton of deleted scenes included, and a few of which I would have loved to see in the film, but Turteltaub is on hand here to justify why they all had to remain on the cutting room floor. Of the nine other extras, the two I would recommend checking out the most would be Secrets of a Sequel which is a quick breakdown with the cast and crew about going ‘bigger and better’ in terms of scope and quality with the sequel. The other must-see extra is Inside Library of Congress, where the filmmakers spread the love about how awesome this particular library is, and detail its history and how it acquires its many books among its archives. Very cool!

Fans of the first film and of other treasure hunting classics like Indiana Jones cannot go wrong with National Treasure: Book of Secrets. As stated above, the filmmakers stick with the same formula of the first film, but crank it up a notch by trekking around the world to international landmarks and even bigger stunts/theatrics thanks in part to a bigger budget. To top it off, if you happen to love your American history as much as I do then expect a free bonus mini-history lesson out of the film too!

Other Random Backlog Movie Blogs

3
12 Angry Men (1957)
12 Rounds 3: Lockdown
21 Jump Street
Angry Video Game Nerd: The Movie
Atari: Game Over
The Avengers: Age of Ultron
Batman: The Killing Joke
Batman: Mask of the Phantasm
Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice
Bounty Hunters
Cabin in the Woods
Captain America: The First Avenger
Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Christmas Eve
Clash of the Titans (1981)
Clint Eastwood 11-pack Special
The Condemned 2
Creed
Dirty Work
Faster
Fast and Furious I-VIII
Field of Dreams
Fight Club
The Fighter
For Love of the Game
Good Will Hunting
Gravity
Guardians of the Galaxy
Hercules: Reborn
Hitman
Ink
The Interrogation
Interstellar
Jobs
Man of Steel
Marine 3-5
Mortal Kombat
National Treasure
The Replacements
Rocky I-VII
Running Films Part 1
Running Films Part 2
San Andreas
ScoobyDoo Wrestlemania Mystery
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Steve Jobs
Source Code
Star Trek I-XIII
Take Me Home Tonight
TMNT
The Tooth Fairy 1 & 2
UHF
Veronica Mars
The War
Wild
The Wrestler (2008)
X-Men: Days of Future Past