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This has been a while in com­ing, but I’m glad to announce that my review of National Treasure: Book of Secrets has been pub­lished in the John Locke Foundation’s March issue of Carolina Journal. I orig­i­nally wrote a much longer review after I took 14 pages of notes in the opening-night show­ing, but the edi­tor of CJ, Richard Wagner, only had room for 700, so I cut it down. Editing is tough, but being forced to cut down on words makes my writ­ing bet­ter. I’ve posted the full text of my review below, but I encour­age you to browse the full CJ issue above–it’s full of good policy/economics/culture com­men­tary and analysis.

Going into the the­ater to watch the much-anticipated sequel to the 2004 hit National Treasure, I expected an action film with an empha­sis on golden trea­sure and his­tor­i­cal mys­tery. Surprisingly unlike the first film, Book of Secrets is not really about the trea­sure, or the mys­te­ri­ous Book at all; Ben Gates couldn’t be less inter­ested in actual gold–he is far more con­cerned with clear­ing an ances­tor of a heinous crime than with the “find”. The film isn’t all that con­cerned with the his­tory either—the focus is more on what the hunt does to the prin­ci­pals of the drama than either the clues they fol­low in their quest or the trea­sure at the end. Despite these depar­tures from the orig­i­nal film’s format–or rather because of them–Book of Secrets is a stronger film overall.

The story opens a few months after the con­clu­sion of the first film. Historian Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage) and his girl­friend, National Archives con­ser­va­tor Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger), have bro­ken up and Ben has moved back in with his dad, Patrick (Jon Voight). Geeky side­kick Riley Poole (Justin Bartha) has pub­lished a book on his­tor­i­cal mys­ter­ies and urban leg­ends, while Patrick and Ben are col­lab­o­rat­ing on a speak­ing tour.

The Gates’ lec­tures tell of an ances­tor Thomas Gates, who was asked by Lincoln’s assas­sins to decrypt a coded doc­u­ment the night of the mur­der. When the loyal Gates real­ized the doc­u­ment con­tained the key to a trea­sure which could reju­ve­nate the Confederate war effort, he tried to destroy it. Gates was shot by the con­spir­a­tors, but the mys­te­ri­ous doc­u­ment, miss­ing 18 crit­i­cal pages, sur­vived.
Their nar­ra­tive is chal­lenged when a rival his­to­rian, Mitch Wilkerson (Ed Harris), comes for­ward with a miss­ing page from the diary that impli­cates Thomas Gates in the con­spir­acy. Dumbfounded, Ben and Patrick real­ize that they must dis­prove the authen­tic­ity of Wilkinson’s arti­fact or lose their family’s good name—and a mys­te­ri­ous cipher tran­scribed from the frag­ment offers a clue to an older mys­tery that may val­i­date the Gates legend.

The trail leads on to the tit­u­lar “Book of Secrets”, a shad­owy vol­ume for Presidents’ eyes only that Riley claims holds the answers to dozens of mys­ter­ies from pre­his­toric America to Area 51. Ben all-but kid­naps the President to ask him for access to the Book, but unex­pect­edly it is not the Secret Service but Wilkinson who nabs the group. They quickly find their lives, as well as the Gates fam­ily name, depend on foil­ing Wilkinson’s scheme to affix his name to the great­est pre-Columbian dis­cov­ery of all time.

The action of the film skill­fully high­lights the the­matic focus of the film: the value of rep­u­ta­tion and rela­tion­ships, and how both may have life-or-death impli­ca­tions. Ben’s desire to redeem his ancestor’s good name dri­ves the story. Later on, he appeals to the President’s hon­esty to gain access to the Book, and pledges his own word of honor to gain Abigail’s release from Wilkinson. Ben’s assur­ance in the inno­cence of Thomas Gates, and his will­ing­ness to risk all to prove it, is based on his trust in his ances­tors’ hon­esty. The restora­tion of trust in Ben and Abigail’s rela­tion­ship is inte­gral to the story as well, under­scored by a par­al­lel rec­on­cil­i­a­tion between Patrick and his estranged wife Emily (Helen Mirren).

Historical purists will prob­a­bly pre­fer the first film, as the plot of its sequel leaves doc­u­men­tary his­tory early on and leaps from con­spir­acy to con­spir­acy with glee­ful aban­don. Detective fans may wish for a tighter mys­tery. Overall, though, Book of Secrets hangs together very well and improves on the first film in many ways. While there are a few sug­ges­tive lines and spooky moments, more than the first film, the film­mak­ers have suc­ceeded very well in repris­ing their family-friendly action thriller with a his­tor­i­cal twist. The cyn­i­cism some­times seen in National Treasure has been replaced by a wel­come empha­sis on hero­ism and nobil­ity in the sequel, the con­stant repar­tee is back, and yes, there is a hook for the next sequel, if you can find it.

IHS,

John Calvin Young