Reviews
National Treasure Book of Secrets
Released in the UK on Boxing Day, 2004, the original National Treasure shamelessly plundered Dan Brown's global bestseller The Da Vinci Code to contrive a fast-paced treasure hunt around some of the US's most iconic monuments and landmarks. What the film lacked in logic, it made up in breathlessly paced action sequences and old-fashioned fun, recalling the escapades of Indiana Jones, albeit without the wit.
For the sequel, director John Turteltaub reunites with the stars of the original, plus a couple of new faces, for an even more absurd tale of ancient brotherhoods and hidden ciphers. National Treasure: Book of Secrets doesn't quite surpass the tongue-in-cheek entertainment of its predecessor, despite a breathtaking car chase sequence through the traffic-jammed streets of London, but Turteltaub's film is a pleasant, harmless diversion.
Husband and wife writing team Cormac and Marianne Wibberley open with a flashback to 1865 Washington and the assassination of President Lincoln. Fast-forward to the present day and renowned treasure seeker Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage) is stunned when a stranger, Mitch Wilkinson (Ed Harris), interrupts one of his lectures to flaunt incontrovertible evidence - a half burnt page from John Wilkes Booth's diary - linking one of Ben's ancestors, Thomas Gates, to the assassination plot. Determined to clear the family name, Ben joins forces with his university professor father, Patrick (Jon Voight), techno-wizard assistant Riley (Justin Bartha) and estranged girlfriend, National Archives conservator Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger), to unravel the intrigue.
Decoding the hidden meaning of Thomas's dying words - "The debt that all men pay" - the treasure hunters discover strange artefacts which point to a South American culture. Ben's mother, linguistics professor Emily Appleton (Helen Mirren), becomes embroiled in the mystery, working in close proximity to her estranged ex-husband, 32 years after they exchanged heated words.
The film crushes common sense under a stampede of slickly orchestrated set pieces such as a daring robbery from Buckingham Palace and a similar raid on the Oval Office. The Wibberleys ask we accept each ludicrous plot twist without hesitation, down to Ben kidnapping the US President (Bruce Greenwood) in order to get his grubby hands on the titular tome, which purportedly contains truths about Area 51, the JFK conspiracy and the missing Watergate tapes. A ramshackle plot for National Treasure 3 is surely on one of these pages.
Cage keeps a straight face throughout as the gung-ho adventurer with a nose for trouble, while Kruger fills the heels of the romantic interest. Bartha makes the most of some limp one-liners, finally proving his credentials as a daredevil action hero only to realise, "Why couldn't a girl see me do that?" Mirren and Voight bring gravitas to their underwritten roles as ageing sidekicks, while Harris squanders his considerable talent as the glowering, greedy villain.
A spectacular, waterlogged finale at Mount Rushmore sums up the film perfectly: overblown, noisy and dumb.
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