Review: National Treasure: Book of Secrets

* * *

Nicolas Cage, Jon Voight, Diane Krueger, Justin Bartha, Helen Mirren, Ed Harris, Harvey Keitel, Bruce Greenwood. Directed by Jon Turtletaub. Written by Cormac Wibberley and Marianne Wibberley. Rated PG. 124 minutes. Buena Vista Pictures.

National Treasure: Book of Secrets, the lavishly-mounted new Disney adventure and sequel to 2004’s National Treasure, is at once a silly, historically fast and loose and sometimes highly-entertaining film that works on its own modest terms, or at least on the professionalism of its terrific cast.

The plot, and there’s a lot of it, goes something like this: Now-famous treasure hunter Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage), is alarmed by new information implicating his great-grandfather in a secret society involved in the assassination of President Lincoln, composed of Confederate conspirators—including John Wilkes Booth—aware of the existence of the mythical City of Gold.

To clear his family name, he enlists the help of father Patrick (Jon Voight), naïve assistant Riley (Justin Bartha), who has written a book detailing their earlier Templar adventure, ex-girlfriend and National Museum archivist Abigail (Diane Krueger) and Ben’s mother, professor and Native American history authority Emily Appleton (Helen Mirren), inhumanly adept at instantly decoding barely visible symbols of a mysterious, ancient language. Hot on the trail of this motley mix is nefarious Mitch Wilkinson (Ed Harris), determined to prove the existence of the historic conspiracy and beat them to the treasure that may lie within the ancient city.

Their quest this time out sends them globetrotting to uncover clues in London, Paris and Washington, ultimately landing at Mt. Rushmore, doubling as an elaborate cipher for what may be hidden beneath. But wait—none of this can happen before kidnapping the President (Bruce Greenwood) during his own birthday party by luring him into secret tunnels beneath Mt. Vernon. How Ben gets him down there is a howler, but the film’s pace wisely leaves no time for such considerations. And then there is the supposed existence of a clandestine book passed down from one president to the next, holding the key to the mystery in question, as well as the answers to every American conspiracy or cover-up in history.  

It is all really ridiculous…and really diverting. Implausible? About as much as Indiana Jones and his iconic boulder.

National Treasure: Book of Secrets, enlivened by a top-notch cast who wouldn’t dream of thumbing their noses at the convolutions of such escapist material, is a good deal of fun by the time it reaches its over-the-top of Mount Rushmore climax. As the heroes descend into a cavernous underground of tight tunnels, crumbling rocks and rushing water, they stumble upon a gorgeous movie set—an ancient, lost city constructed almost entirely in gold—pushing the wow factor through the roof.

Now, make no mistake—the movie is loaded with historical liberties and wild implausibilities, check-your-brain set-ups and often just outright foolishness, such as how the ingenious team gains access to an antique Oval Office desk as well as the underground world of the film’s final reel. But no matter.

In the climax, the underground sets are an Escher-like puzzle of ins and outs and ups and downs, ultimately depositing the team on a large stone tablet supported by a narrow stone fulcrum, setting up an elaborate human board game. As the actors balance their weight from corner to corner, narrowly escaping a bottomless pit beneath while the ground keeps shifting beneath their feet, it is obvious that the point of National Treasure: Book of Secrets, has nothing to do with revisionist history or the possibility of political conspiracies—it is simply to be an unpretentious, movie thrill-machine.

Cage, a tad tired yet deftly balancing comedy and action, is appealing here as a variation on Cage. And Krueger, the cool beauty that launched a thousand ships in Wolfgang Peterson’s Troy, displays a knack for comic timing and repartee in a wholly unbelievable Buckingham Palace outburst, playing straight man to Cage’s lunacy. She doesn’t have the earthiness of Kathleen Turner in Romancing the Stone or the knock-out punch of Karen Allen in Raiders of the Lost Ark, but she certainly registers in the spunk department and holds her own in the film’s strenuous physical sequences. Comic foil Justin Bartha gets by on charm, milking more mileage than deserved from his hapless sidekick schtick.

The delights of seeing a spry, comically estranged Mirren and Voight bickering throughout the film are also considerable. In a very funny reunion scene, Mirren, letting her hair down as if vacationing through this movie, gets the film’s best line: "It wasn’t love, it was adrenaline. And tequila." And Harvey Keitel rounds out the impressive ensemble as an FBI agent on the scene.

Director Jon Turtletaub clearly understands that this is treasure hunting, not rocket science. It is also a diverting couple of B-movie hours, dressed up with class by a lively cast and a few good set pieces.

- Lee Shoquist