The Year's First Guilty Pleasure

National Treasure: Book of Secrets
directed by Jon Turtletaub
starring Nicolas Cage, Jon Voight, Helen Mirren, Ed Harris, Diane Kruger, Justin Bartha

As risible as many of my movie-loving friends may find the idea, I genuinely enjoyed the first National Treasure movie when I saw it three years ago. I had walked into it with next to no expectations considering the penchant of both its star, Nicolas Cage, and its producer, Jerry Bruckheimer for some really trashy movies, and given that I wasn't too impressed with what I had seen in the trailers. It had therefore come as a really pleasant surprise. There was a lot about the movie that worked and this is relevant to the evaluation of its follow-up, Book of Secrets, because essentially the makers of the movie transplanted everything successful (or which they believed successful) about the first movie into this new installment.

The first, most important aspect of the first Treasure movie is that unlike the rather self-important story and movie on which it is widely believed to have been based, The Da Vinci Code, it does not have any aspirations or pretensions towards being taken seriously. It is in many ways, a fun romp, as is evident in everything from the dialogue to the lighting.

A lot of the fun was in "seeing clues" on such mundane items as hundred-dollar bills. The ability of Benjamin Gates (Cage) to unearth important clues in the most unexpected places was integral to the original movie's charm.

The second movie tries to follow suit by planting clues on other historical landmarks but using a remote-control helicopter to see a clue on the statue of liberty's smaller duplicate in Paris is nowhere near as engaging and novel as seeing hidden symbols and meaning on something as ordinary as paper money.

The first movie was also refreshing for the fact that it could sustain a moving story with action, but with little to no violence. The first movie had a minimal body count and it was entirely from people falling down a deep hole rather than the traditional, human inflicted death that takes place in Hollywood productions. It did have a car chase, as does the second, but both are fairly disposable affairs, especially after the Bourne movies set the bar for such chase scenes so high.

Finally, both movies' enormous set pieces, as unbelievable as they may be to anyone who thinks about it, are really a lot of fun.

The first movie was about unearthing the treasure of the Knights Templar, while this one is about unearthing a City of Gold which the Confederate Army had intended to use during the Civil War in order to overthrow the Union. The twist is that Ben Gates and company must unearth the treasure because it's the only way to clear the name of their ancestor, Thomas Gates, who was implicated in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by a shady character played by Ed Harris. The path to this treasure takes our heroes around the world, well, "across the pond" anyway, to Paris and London, to find clues. Maybe next time they could head somewhere in Asia and give the movie a truly global sensibility.

There are a couple of welcome additions to the film, like the inclusion of new cast members Helen Mirren as Ben Gates' mom, and Harris. Jon Voight is still a delight as Patrick Gates, Ben's dad, who had a ball with the role in the first movie and still does here. Mirren gets to let her hair down as well with this movie, having a lot of fun as Native American history expert Emma gates.

The sequel, to be sure, lacks the novelty of the first movie, which basically caught me off guard with how enjoyable it was. Fortunately, the chemistry between Cage and his original costars, like Voight, and Justin Bartha as his sidekick Riley Poole and Diane Kruger as Abigail Chase (with an improved accent) is still quite evident, and this helps propel the movie through some of its clunkier moments.

Admittedly, the producers really had quite a challenge in store for themselves when they decided to stretch a pretty thin plotline into another movie, but all things considered they still made a movie that was worth two hours and four minutes of my time.

Though I still preferred the original, the box office of this film would suggest that other people feel differently, so I guess another sequel is inevitable. I think it would be cool if, for a change, Ben Gates and company had to hunt for clues all over Asia as well. Then maybe we could catch a glimpse of genuine hottie Kruger filming her scenes here in the Philippines. Rowrr!!!