National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007) - No Secret that it Stinks!

Movie: National Treasure: Book of Secrets
Release: 2007
Director: Jon Turteltaub
Actors: Nicolas Cage, Diane Kruger, Justin Bartha, Jon Voight, Helen Mirren, Ed Harris

I saw this recently on a flight to and from Chicago. So, I had to sit through this stinker twice and even without audio its awful. Here's the gist. Benjamin Franklin Gates (Cage) is some sort of quasi-archaeologist who in the first movie, National Treasure, discovers some secret lost treasure of the Free Masons. And, yes, the name is stupid, but that is the only thing consistent in this movie franchise. In this movie, it's basically the same setup and along for the ride is girlfriend from the first romp, Abigail Chase (Kruger) and hapless sidekick Riley Poole (Bartha). And, to round out the cast, his dad, Patrick Henry Gates (Voight), does his best befuddled, old, professor ala Sean Connery in Last Crusade. And, of course, in only a few days, Gates and his buddies supposedly find treasure that has eluded other for centuries.

So, here's the story. Gates is now giving speeches about how wonderful a role his family has had in history and blah, blah, blah! Then, Mitch Wilkinson (Harris) shows up to spoil the day with evidence that supposedly links Gates' great-great grand daddy with the Lincoln assassination. And the only way to clear the Gates family name is to find the some secret treasure which coincidentally is what Wilkenson wants anyway. Confused? Yes, me too and we're only ten minutes into the movie. So, Gates employs his sidekick, Riley and his now ex-girl, Abigail to attempt to find this treasure. There's some needless car chases and shooting. However, we spend a few minutes in Paris and a few minutes in London and that's about it despite what the poster might suggest.

Of course, since this is a sequel, we've got to add more characters. And sadly, this time it's Gates' mom, Emily (Mirren) who for some reason (perhaps Voight's bad acting) hates her ex-husband. But, she's an expert on pre-Colombian artifacts. Now, I've heard 'pre-Colombian' in many different movies to refer to some sort of hokey, tribal magical non-sense but never has the person spouting this gibberish been less believable then Mirren in this role. It's probably the script and the director or the quality of the cast, but her acting is non-existant. Now, keep in mind that Helen Mirren is one of my favorite actresses. I've loved her since her I first saw her as Morgana in Excalibur (which would be much better to see then this dog). I even sat through Teaching Mrs. Tingle for Mirren which is saying a lot. But this movie is well below her standards and her character is laughably superficial.

However, getting back to the story, such as it is. There are so many holes in this movie that it would take me an entire website to deconstruct all the problems. So, lets just focus on a few obvious problems. First, the entire goal of this movie is that Gates is trying to clear his family's name. OK, why the big deal about whether or not someone 150 years ago was possibly involved in the assassination of Lincoln? Certainly not something that I'd worry to0 much about, but for the purpose of this film, it's the most important thing in the world. I don't buy it. Second, at some point Cage must kidnap the President of the United States. Yes, I know, completely unbelievable, but realism flew out the door in before the first movie finished. So, if the President is somehow kidnapped, how come it is so easy for Cage to get away? And how come it is so easy for everyone to suddenly forget that he did kidnap the President? Just not plausible. I could go on, but I'll stop with just this final point; the historical inaccuracies in this flick are almost as bad as the first movie.

So, what's with the Book of Secrets? Well, as I said earlier, Cage has to kidnap the President of the United States. Why? To find out where his book of secrets is which holds secrets passed down from President to President. I know, totally ridiculous, but this is the core of the movie title. Which is only slightly better then my version, National Treasure: Total Waste of Time.

Rating: Poor
IQ: Coma patients only!
Originality: It's Nick Cage, come on.
Watchability: Next time, I'll jump out of the plane!