Rama’s SCREEN

This movie is cheesy, silly and way too far-fetched. I can understand trying to make a movie that the whole family can enjoy, something like The Goonies, but this NATIONAL TREASURE: BOOK OF SECRETS will make you say, “Yeah, right! Get outta here!” I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire cast agree to do another installment because… clearly they had so much fun doing this one. I’m sure they all signed on not because the storyline was challenging, it was simply because inside every one of us, no matter how old we are, there’s always a curiosity about buried treasure, there’s something mystical about it that never ceases to fascinate us.

Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage), a treasure hunter, is being faced with a dilemma that his ancestor, Thomas Bates, may have been one of the co-conspirators in the assassination of Pres. Lincoln. To clear his family’s name, he must follow the clue that starts with the missing page from Wilkes Booth’s diary. The search will take him and his team to an adventure that is bigger than they expected. They might have to do unconventional things like kidnapping the President of U.S.A. over some urban legend called the book of secrets.

Acting is not part of what this movie emphasizes. We don’t have to watch the movie twice to remember that the actors involved in this movie most of the time are either running, saying brief punch-lines, or talking about the one clue after the next.
There are moments like when Emily (Helen Mirren) talks to Patrick Gates (Jon Voight) about how she has to make sacrifices for the sake of Benjamin Gates (Nicolas Cage), but that moment starts and finishes quickly because the movie’s first mission is to get back to the treasure hunting as soon as possible and not go deeply into any emotional drama.

I think the movie’s too long. But then again, producer Jerry Bruckheimer (Pirates of the Caribbean, Bad Boys, Beverly Hills Cop) likes to make sure that his sequels are longer than the originals.
And as always, you can’t have Jerry Bruckheimer movies without seeing gorgeous cars getting damaged real bad.

The problem is that Ben Gates and the gang keeps finding one clue that leads to another and that clue leads to another and on and on and this whole link feels like it never ends, it seems to be blown way out of proportion.
I think they could’ve reduced their findings into a few and made that few more intricate, complicated and thrilling.
The visuals weren’t bad. Every set they built, every replica was impressive. I even like the way they did the opening sequence where John Wilkes Booth assassinated Pres. Lincoln.

One thing for sure, I hope that this movie will make people curious enough to want to look up or google some history and study it rather than mistaking this movie for a fact, which sadly is what some lazy ignorants might do out there.

* Place the cursor on the picture below to check my grade for this film