A Scientist at the Movies Reviews by Greg Paris

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Title: National Treasure (2): Book of Secrets

Date Viewed: 12/24/07

Details:

Nicolas Cage

Justin Bartha

Diane Kruger

Jon Voight

Helen Mirren

Ed Harris

Harvey Keitel

Bruce Greenwood

Director: Jon Turteltaub

Score: 3/4

The Review: Not quite as good as the first excursion, but pretty good in its own right. However, it is definitely not stand-alone: there are circumstances here that would be unbelievable without the "notoriety" arising from the "events" of the first National Treasure. (Well, there are also circumstances that are unbelievable in any case, but pay no attention to them!)

Even heroes have their naysayers, and here we get a one-two punch. Ben Gates (Cage) has split up with his girlfriend of episode 1 (Kruger), and they're bickering over how to split up the estate. And at one of his public lectures, Gates is confronted by a well-dressed stranger (Harris) who claims he has evidence that the Gates family was involved in the assassination of President Lincoln. Such charges cannot go unanswered, so the hunt is on for hidden documents, secret codes and monumental architecture. It's just another day in a Gates' life. But this time, the distaff side of the family is dragged into the fray as well. Helen Mirren is a good addition to the family -- Ben's mother, an archaeologist and linguist in her own right.

A few anomalies penetrated my movie gaze. First, notwithstanding the revelations of 1491, and the insights of Kennedy's Hidden Cities, I do have a few quibbles about the megalithic engineering capabilities of pre-Columbian American natives -- especially as realized here. And second, we discover that the Library of Congress classification scheme has decided to embrace a new class: X, for special collections (as in XY234) -- this is certainly not documented in the public LC guides as authorized.

Archaeological and bibliographic quirks aside, this romp too is fun.

(24-Dec-07)

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