National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets review by Drunky

If there’s a plotline for a movie that can’t miss with me – it’s a treasure hunt. I eat it up. I love everything Indiana Jones. My favorite movie as a kid was Goonies – a hunt for pirates’s treasure. And to be honest, Goonies is still in my top 20 movies of all time. Hell, to be really honest, it’s probably in my top 10. I’ve owned a metal-detector, I’ve panned for gold in Colorado, and I’ve purchased more than one treasure-seeker magazine in my time. I haven’t done any of these things since my early teens but they all still sound like a good time to me. But in these more-practical and less-fantastical adult years I rely on Hollywood to give me my occasional treasure-hunt fix.

So I fill my crack pipe with National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets. The story picks up with the characters a few years after we last saw them triumphant and super-rich at the end of the first film. It’s a textbook Hollywood-type start to a sequel as all our heroes are conveniently kicked back to being chumps, so that they can build themselves up to champions again. Ben Gates (Nicholas Cage) is estranged from his gal (Diane Kruger), so he’s kicked out of the mega-mansion and living with his dad (Jon Voight) in a humble abode. The other ‘team’ member: tech-whiz Riley (comic-relief Justin Bartha) has lost all his bucks to the IRS. To make matters worse for Ben Gates, some new information has just come out that points to his great-great-grandfather Thomas Gates as the likely lead-conspirator in the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln. Ben sets out to clear his family name by trying to disprove this information and in the process finds himself on a hunt for one of the greatest treasures of all time.

“Help me figure out how to use this wood.”

Sounds like a slam-dunk storyline to me. Unfortunately, here’s where director Jon Turteltaub steps on the gas with his eye on the finish line. I’ve never seen a movie with so much plot combined with so little substance. Here are some of the storylines and sub-plots of this movie: the truth behind the Lincoln assassination, Ben Gates estranged relationship with Abigail, Ben’s dad’s estranged relationship with Ben’s mom, the plot to kidnap the U.S. President, the Presidential “Book of Secrets” that contains the truth on things like Area 51 and the Kennedy Assassination, bad-guy Wilkinson’s (Ed Harris) quest for historical immortality, FBI agent (Harvey Keitel’s) renewed buddy-enemy relationship with Ben and his hunt to catch him, the history behind and hunt for the great treasure (which shall go unnamed for minor ‘spoiler’ relief), and various puzzles to solve which take Ben and his companions to France and to England before returning to America for plenty more puzzles to solve. Can you imagine all this (and more) being played-out in an interesting manner in one two-hour movie? If you can, you’ve got an imagination that would weird-out Dr. Suess because it can’t be done. All this stuff is crammed in, and sped through with no substance whatsoever.

Now, I don’t have a problem enjoying a Disney adventure-romp that’s meant to be a lot of flash, fun & tempo and not much else. But when you write substance checks, you gotta cash ‘em. What you’ve got here are over-zealous writers who put together what would’ve made two or three good movies and the director had to slash it all down to one. But what needed to be done was to take out some of the sub-plots in their entirety. Ben’s dad & mom relationship thing? Gone! Every Harvey Keitel scene? Gone! There wouldn’t have been any loss, and the remaining plotlines could have been expanded properly, or at least a little moreso. Keitel must have been particularly pissed/bummed by the way, because if you watch the DVD extras you’ll see that he had the bulk of what was to be his role totally cut out of the movie. What remained amounted to “Look it’s Harvey Keitel! Remember him from the first movie?” Yeah all these cuts would have to have been decided before they signed Keitel and Helen Mirren (Ben’s mom) to contracts, so chalk it up to bad planning.

But if you watch the DVD commentary, Turtletaub repeatedly defends the cuts (which if put back into the movie still wouldn’t have been near enough). He repeatedly says “I think movies are generally too long.” Now, he’s either a liar who is defending his filmmaking plus telling the studios which employ him what they like to hear… or he’s a dunce. I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he’s just a liar since some of his previous work is acceptable fare that is definitely not rushed like Phenomenon and While You Were Sleeping. If he really truly likes the mish-mashed end result of National Treasure 2, then I have to assume that when he goes to Burger King to have it his way he orders his burger with mustard, ketchup, mayonnaise, ranch dressing, horseradish, tarter sauce, italian dressing, tabasco and barbeque sauce – takes a big bite and exclaims “mmmmm so many delicious flavors!!”

The brain-trust: Jon “thousand-mile-stare” Turteltaub and producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

And here’s a hint Turteltaub – when you make a movie where somebody is getting clues and solving puzzle after puzzle you have to at least give your audience a chance to say “Gee whiz– however are we going to figure this out?” before the hero is already onto the next puzzle. This applies even when we would’ve had no chance of figuring it out. Otherwise it’s akin to sitting behind someone on the bus and watching them do a crossword puzzle – when you’re close enough to be able to see the answers he’s writing-in but not close enough to see the clues. Negative fun.

I feel the need to say I have no problem with any of the cast in this movie. I like what Nick Cage brings to the table. Justin Bartha seems to be an untapped talent. I’m an Ed Harris fan. And I think Keitel plays his role to perfection – when he’s not being cut out. What a mismanagement of resources.

There’s a big problem with the conclusion of the main plotline too which I can’t go into for spoiler purposes. But for a beloved treasure-hunt movie I would have been cool with totally letting that go. But what I can’t let go is terrible pacing that ruins the progression of the treasure hunt and sucks the magic out of the movie.


3 out of 10 Jackasses
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