Movie Review:
National Treasure: Book of Secrets
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Common Sense Media Review
It's never a good sign when you can figure out a secret plot before a movie's characters do. Then again, that's not very hard to do when the plot is the same as the first time you saw it. Unfortunately, "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" adds precious few new ideas to the blueprint established in "National Treasure."
At the film's start, history fanatic/inveterate puzzle solver Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage) is making his living lecturing on his family's contributions to U.S. legacies. So imagine his horror when another self-proclaimed patriot, Mitch Wilkinson (Ed Harris), asserts that a Gates ancestor was a "mastermind" in the assassination of Ben's favorite president, Abraham Lincoln. Ben does exactly what you know he will: He takes the bait. Declaring that he must clear his family's name, Ben takes off on a treasure hunt.
This means enlisting the help of all the folks from the first film -- history-buff dad, Patrick (Jon Voight); ex-girlfriend/archivist, Abigail (Diane Kruger); and sidekick Riley (Justin Bartha) -- as well as Ben's mother, Emily (Helen Mirren). She hasn't spoken to Patrick for 32 years, but, being a Native American linguist, she happens to be the only possible translator of a clue in the treasure hunt.
Said hunt takes the crew from Paris (for about two minutes) to London to Washington, D.C., with each location affording glimpses of historical monuments and occasions for Cage's antics. As in the first film, he's the primary draw, alternately goofy and smirky and always entertaining (and, frankly, he's the only cast member who can make the unwieldy expository dialogue seem at all plausible). Soon the hunters are being hunted by FBI agents (led by Harvey Keitel, essentially reprising his role from "Thelma & Louise"), whom they lead to Mount Rushmore, where, as in the first movie, they discover a cave holding gold, treacherous spaces, and no surprises.
Viewers might enjoy other movies about treasure hunts, like "Pirates of the Caribbean," "Captains Courageous," "Romancing the Stone," and "Sahara." Or, for an infinitely more creative use of Mount Rushmore, see Alfred Hitchcock's "North by Northwest."
What Parents Should Know
Parents need to know that the action in this fast-paced adventure sequel is loud and sometimes tense (car chases, near falls from high ledges in a dark cave, etc.), but for the most part it's pretty tame. The most troubling scene comes early, when, in a flashback to 1865, a child sees his father shot and killed; the sequence also includes a reenactment of Abraham Lincoln's assassination (not bloody, but obvious). In the present day, there's some shooting, car crashes, hand-to-hand fighting, and threats made with guns. Expect some cleavage shots, plus innocuous flirting and kissing.
Families can talk about the differences between real history and "Hollywood history." Why do you think filmmakers bend the facts so often? Is real history less entertaining than the kind that's manufactured for the movies? Do you think this movie is trying to prompt kids to take an interest in history? Kids: What do you know about the historical sites featured in the film (the White House, Buckingham Palace, and Mount Rushmore)? How could you find out more?
Common Sense Media is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing information to help parents make media and entertainment choices for their families.
