The Da Vinci Code was a good yarn. A jigsaw puzzle of a conspiracy theory tale where most of the action happens in the heads of a symboligist in a tweed jacket backed up by a cryptologist cop and an octogenarian historian on crutches. In 2004, uber-producer Jerry Bruckheimer, having read Da Vinci and thought, “This would be awesome with more action and more Americana,” released National Treasure and surprise, surprise, it was an international box office success. Naturally, a sequel was inevitable and anyone expecting anything less (more) than another convoluted trip trough an American History textbook is going to be disappointed.



In this one, the Gates family tree is accused of having a rotten apple in the form of Thomas Gates, whose name is found in one of the missing pages of the diary of Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth. Treasure hunter Ben Gates (Nicholas Cage) brings his merry band back together including dad Patrick (Jon Voight), sidekick Riley (Justin Bartha) and estranged ex Abigail (Diane Kruger) to clear his family name. This time, Ben’s mom Emily (Helen Mirren) comes along for the ride as the Gates gang tries to beat fellow treasure hunter Mitch Wilkinson (Ed Harris) to a lost Native American city made of gold, with friendly neighbourhood FBI agent Sadusky (Harvey Keitel) in full pursuit.



This time the pursuit is global, with localities in Paris and London being key in the treasure hunt, but still the mystery comes down to Cage’s Gates unique ability to take rhyming clues and somehow suss out the precise answer by making sense out of gibberish. To believe the National Treasure movies, the entire 400 year history of Europeans in the New World was one giant conspiracy theory to hide one sort of pot of gold or another. Perfectly fine, but it does strain believability that one family is so deeply entrenched in two separate mythologies.



So with the “Seriously…” factor in full effect in comes down to performance and overall execution to allow the film to sustain itself. On the subject of the latter, this thing is about twenty minutes too long and the dangers faced by the characters barely test the PG rating. At least in the first Treasure Sean Bean’s villain had an actual sense of menace, which is something that Harris’ lacks even before the narrative rug is pulled out from beneath him. Also, the last adventure had plausible gains for Ben and friends, don’t ask me to explain how the discovery of a lost city of gold clears the good name of anyone accused in helping the Kill Lincoln effort, it just seems to.



There’s no shortage of characters though. Clearly, Nicolas Cage likes playing Ben Gates and who can blame him? If you can’t play Indiana Jones, you might as well play his low rent, Disneyfied, Bruckheimer-enhanced equivalent. Justin Bartha adds some levity, but I honestly think that the smart-alecy tech assistant is pretty much a cliché now. In the looking tired (bored?) category are Diane Kruger, Jon Voight and Helen Mirren. Two characters I wished there were more of were Harvey Keitel’s Sadusky, who like Cage seems to be having a good time, and Bruce Greenwood as the US President.



Despite the litany of complaints though, I must hold up that Book of Secrets is at least entertaining if not wholeheartedly engaging. Still, I think that the first film is a more solid endeavour, and that the sequel suffers from a severe case of one-up-manship. It forgot the simple things – that looking for long hidden treasure and deciphering complex clues is supposed to be fun. (Yes, I’m a nerd.) It’s best that you don’t think about the goings on too much and just enjoy the ride while being thankful and Jon Turteltaub has the direction enough to tell Nicolas Cage to save the ham.