By Faith McQuinn

I have never begun to understand how critics can pan a movie like NATIONAL TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS. I mean, doesn’t everyone understand what kind of movie he or she is going to see when the names Jerry Bruckheimer and Nicolas Cage appear on the screen? Well, if they don’t, I do. It’s not spectacular filmmaking by any stretch of the imagination, but it was never meant to be. In a season brimming with Oscar hopefuls, sometimes all a person wants is a good popcorn action movie.

When we last left Ben Gates (Cage), he had just made the largest artifact discovery in history, become a millionaire, and gotten the girl. This time, the girl has dumped him; he’s living with his father, and a man named Mitch Wilkinson (Ed Harris) has just told him his great grandfather was part of the Abraham Lincoln assassination plot.

Adamant about clearing his family’s name, Ben, his parents (Jon Voight and Helen Mirren), his ex-girlfriend (Diane Kruger) and his trusty sidekick Riley (Justin Bartha) set off to find the hidden City of Gold that will prove his great grandfather had no part in the death Lincoln. Along the way, he must break into Buckingham Palace, sneak into the Oval Office, kidnap the president, and find out if Mt. Rushmore is really a cover-up. All this while the sinister Wilkinson is trying to kill him.

Let’s get the story details out of the way right now. There is no way any of this would ever happen. No one is going to be able to sneak into the Queen’s private study. That same no one isn’t going to be able to kidnap the president and walk away from it after the fact. Does any of this matter? No, because as I said before, this isn’t a thinking person’s movie. The more outlandish the adventure get, the more I enjoy myself.


Nicolas Cage, with his fake tan and too-white teeth, got on my nerves a little bit, but he plays the patriotic action star pretty well just the same. Jon Voight and Diane Kruger are OK--nothing to write home to Mom about. Ed Harris is pure stunt casting. Anyone could’ve played the prerequisite evil guy and possibly done it with a little more enthusiasm than he shows. Helen Mirren is underutilized by far. Maybe in the third one (because you know there will be one), she’ll get a bigger part.

The standout role is definitely Justin Bartha’s Riley Poole. In NATIONAL TREASURE, Riley was just the sidekick. In BOOK OF SECRETS, he’s still a sidekick but a sidekick who gets more jokes, more action, and most of the best lines. The other funny role went to Bruce Greenwood as The President. At first, he seems dry and just another bit of stunt casting, but when he and Ben go for a little exploring, his witty repartee with the secret service agent cracked me up.

All and all, BOOK OF SECRETS is an enjoyable action movie with lots of special effects camera work, chase scenes, and cool underground tunnels. The jokes are funnier and the action is bigger than the first NATIONAL TREASURE, but I still think the first is a better movie.


Although I feel I’ve just ended my review, I must tack on a quick paragraph about the short film in front of the movie. To make BOOK OF SECRETS even more family friendly, Disney presented a Goofy short. It’s in the tradition of those 1950s “educational” films in which Goofy always stars. I don’t know if it’s showing in every theatre, but hopefully, it’s showing at yours. If you don’t find BOOK OF SECRETS entertaining, you will at least find Goofy and his home entertainment high jinks worth at least the price of your popcorn.