DISNEY: NATIONAL TREASURE 2:
BOOK OF SECRETS(2007)
As with most follow-up movies, this one losses some to the
newness of the previous movie!! However, Nicolas Cage still
does a great job and this has it's moments!! A-
A review from Amazon:
Less engrossing than its 2004 predecessor National Treasure,
Jon Turteltaub’s busy sequel National Treasure: Book of Secrets
is nevertheless a colorful and witty adventure, another race
against overwhelming odds for the answer to a historical riddle.
Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage), the treasure hunter who feverishly
sought, in the first film, the whereabouts of a war chest hidden
by America’s forefathers, is now charged with protecting family
honor. When a rival (Ed Harris) offers alleged proof that Gates’
ancestor, Thomas Gates, was not a Civil War-era hero but a
participant in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Ben and
his father (Jon Voight) and crew (Justin Bartha, Diane Kruger)
hopscotch through Paris, London, Washington DC, and South
Dakota to gather evidence refuting the claim. The film is most
fun when the hunt, as in National Treasure, squeezes Ben into
such impossible situations as examining twin desks in the
queen’s chambers in Buckingham Palace and the White
House’s Oval Office, or kidnapping an American president
(Bruce Greenwood) for a few minutes of frank talk. Helen
Mirren, the previous year's Oscar winner for Best Actress,
wisely joins the cast of a likely hit film as Ben’s archaeologist
mother, long-estranged from Voight’s character but as feisty
as the rest of the family. Returning director Turteltaub takes
excellent advantage of his colorful backdrops in European
capitals and the always-eerie Mount Rushmore, and oversees
some wildly imaginative sets for this dramedy’s feverish third
act in an audacious and completely unexpected, legendary
setting. If National Treasure: Book of Secrets doesn’t feel
quite as crisp and unique as its predecessor, it is still ingenious
and wry enough to laugh a bit at itself. --Tom Keogh