All That's Gold Isn't New Again

With a free afternoon, I went with my sister to see National Treasure: Book of Secrets. I saw the first film in theaters and enjoyed it, while my sister only saw it for the first time a few weeks ago on TV. Interestingly enough, we both left this movie with a similar opinion; the film is pretty comparable to the original, but that isn't necessarily a glowing review.

What worked in the first one, remains in Book of Secrets. Namely, the escapism the film provides in proposing wild ideas of treasure and conspiracies and then letting the heroes struggle with bad guys to prove it's true. Nicholas Cage, once again playing Ben Gates, works as the treasure hunter who always has the answer to the puzzles that have been unsolved for centuries. Justin Bartha, as Gates' sidekick, Riley, once again provides most of the decent one liners.

Since we're dealing with a sequel, that means the addition of new cast members. Dame Helen Mirren (who must have accidentally stumbled onto the set of this Bruckheimer film) is along this time as Gates' mother. Her scenes with Ben's dad (played by Jon Voigt) are a lot of fun and provide some freshness to the film.

I mention freshness because this film delivers a lot more of the same. In essence, the film is a simple "find clue, decipher clue, get chased, repeat" formula. Sadly, this time around there was more of a focus on the chase aspect, which left less time to decipher clues. While in the original, the main characters actually struggled at times to understand the clues, in this one the answers came a little too quickly. Considering that the treasure they were seeking was supposedly so grand (it ends up paling in comparison to the one they found in the first film), the clues used to conceal its location didn't seen that difficult.

The fact that this sequel breeds a strong sense of familiarity wouldn't be that bad if not for the few things that they opted to do differently. Given that the plot was the same basic idea, they tried to flesh out the main characters more. For instance, we learn at the beginning of the film that Ben and girlfriend Abigail (Diane Kruger) are having relationship issues. Their bickering and eventual reunion are an unnecessary diversion in the film. They also include a few scenes to imply that Riley is unhappy with his sidekick status. These add nothing to the film and only slow things down. People come to see these films because they like a good treasure hunt, not because they have any emotional investment into what happens to these particular characters. In fact, with all due respect to Diane Kruger, the National Treasure franchise may have been better off taking an approach like the Bond films or Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt novels where the focus is on the action and the hot girls are interchangeable.

Since they seemed concerned with developing characters, I would have liked for them to do more with Ed Harris', who plays the film's antagonist. The film never takes the time to have us understand his motivations. If it's to simply find the treasure, why does he involve the Gates family? If it's to ruin the Gates' family name, then why give Ben such a great opportunity to discover the truth? The underdevelopment of Harris' character is connected with the films flaw of properly explaining the connection between the Lincoln assaination and a hidden Native American city of gold.

The flaws of the film, great as they may be, as easily to overlook, however, because the film remains a fun ride. Seeing Ben and company globetrotting while trying to uncover secrets of our nation's past makes for an entertaining couple of hours. The film does not bring anything new to the table, but then again, not all movies should. This is an easy must-see for those who enjoyed the first film. And for those that haven't, this is still probably your best bet for decent popcorn fare at the cinema right now. Enjoy going on another treasure hunt, just don't be surprised if the map looks awfully familiar. Grade: B-