National Treasure: Book of Secrets

National Treasure: Book of Secrets: I have seen the movie and I liked the puzzles and stuffs in it… don’t use much logic and enjoy!!!

Let’s see the reviews of this movie…

Review No. 1:

Nicholas Cage is back on the hunt for puzzles and treasure once again as scholar-adventurer Benjamin Gates in National Treasure: Book of Secrets.

Returning is Jon Voight as Gates’ father, Patrick; Diane Kruger as ex-girlfriend Abigail Chase; Justin Bartha as assistant Riley Poole and Harvey Keitel as FBI Agent Peter Sadusky.

Joining the adventure is Helen Mirren as Gates’ mother, Emily Appleton.

This time, Gates’ latest mission involves the assassination of President Abraham Lincoln at the end of the Civil War, where evidence proclaims that Gates’ great-great-grandfather (Joel Gretsch) was involved in Lincoln’s murder.

Refusing to believe that his ancestor was both a murderer and a traitor to America, Gates sets out to prove his ancestor’s innocence, leading him and his team from Europe to Her Majesty in London to the White House to Virginia, where the Book of Secrets, handed down from President to President, is revealed.

Book of Secrets is a family affair because it continues to explore more into the Gates family.  It is good to see Voight and Kruger take more active roles in this sequel rather than sit on the sideline like the original.
The chemistry between Cage and Mirren is wonderful; and, the relationship between Voight and Mirren, who truly act like old, bickering, estranged former spouses is facinating.  Bartha does have perfect timing as both comic relief and sidekick as well as opportunist to Cage’s Indiana Jones-like Gates.

Like the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy, this film has something of everything for the whole family.

Unlock the mystery with Nicholas Cage and cast, with National Treasure: Book of Secrets

Review No. 2:

National Treasure: The Book of Secrets returns to troubled treasure-hunter Ben Gates (Nicholas Cage) whose ancestors always seem to get mixed-up in historical conspiracies. This time, his great-grandfather Thomas Gates gets associated with the murder of Abraham Lincoln after a disturbing discovery in John Wilkes Booth’s diary. Together with his team, Ben now breaks into landmark buildings on both sides of the Atlantic – Paris, London, Washington D.C. and Mount Rushmore all get proper screen-time in the globetrotting adventure which again leads to remarkable conspiracies. After the finale of The Rock, Nicholas Cage once again has the chance to uncover secrets about the JFK assassination and this time he does it all to a rocking score.

Just like the previous episode, this movie was scored by Trevor Rabin as well, who might be familiar as the member of ‘Yes’ who left the band to dedicate his full attention to film scoring. While (co-)composing the music for Jerry Bruckheimer’s Armageddon and Con Air, Rabin has developed his own individual style which is essentially a combination of face-rocking power anthems, rock guitars and synthesizers pretending to be orchestras. Although the number of actual live players have considerably increased making Rabin’s music more varied, his sound became a bit tiresome after so many summer blockbusters were scored in this style. In 2004, Rabin wrote the music for the original National Treasure with one memorable theme and a couple of good tunes that didn’t endure the test of three years in memory. For the sequel, he returned with a score that is exactly as anthemic as the previous one but becomes more streamlined and generally more pleasant.

As far as sequel scores go, National Treasure: The Book of Secrets is a strong offering rehashing the best parts of its predecessor while adding new goodies to enjoy. The ‘National Treasure Theme’ makes enough appearances in tracks like ‘Spirit of Paris’ and ‘Gabby Shuffle’ without suffocating the movie with repetition. Trevor’s patented power anthems could be added to the checklist, but this time he goes more orchestral than in the beginning of his career, adding curious choices of instrumentations to his score. Traits of the traditional Americana sound are present to represent the historical conspiracies, but they’ve been updated to reflect upon their consequences in the present. Ben’s own theme also gets this treatment, although I had to revisit the first score to remind myself of how it actually goes. The official release of the score really focuses on the action material so thankfully the adrenaline never stops pumping. The biggest downside of the music is that the locations Ben and his friends visit are handled with the usual clichéd instrumentations – when will I stop hearing accordions whenever a movie cuts to Paris?

There are two fundamental mistakes with National Treasure: Book of Secrets, neither of which have anything to do with the actual music. The first one is only a real kick if you are a soundtrack collector and enjoy the shiny discs on your shelf, because this score is an iTunes only release and chances are it won’t get an actual CD treatment in the near future. Now if you’re an iPod-type person, the second problem will still affect you – the album is incredibly short at 22 minutes and 35 seconds – CDs with this kind of running length would never survive the wrath of collectors. However, since we are talking about iTunes and the price is reasonable given the length of music provided, fans of Trevor Rabin and the contemporary action music sound should definitely check out this downloadable original soundtrack.

Cool score, but points deducted for the release problems.

Review No. 3:

Part II of this American treasure hunt series brings together a formidable line-up of actors—Cage, Mirren, Voight, Keitel, Harris. And then goes ahead and shamelessly wastes their histrionic skills in roles that could well have been played by rank amateurs. Only the lure of big bucks and the promise of some fun and entertainment could have driven these guys to sign up for the film. But while they must have garnered the big bucks for sure, the film utterly lacks in any zing or excitement to have kept them going. No wonder each of the thespians seems to be on autopilot or appears to be sleepwalking through their performances. Benjamin Franklin Gates (Cage) is back at booty-hunting, his task this time being to unearth the hidden City of Gold. But gold-digging is only half the story. He also has to clear the name of his ancestor who is being accused of assassinating Abraham Lincoln by this strange guy called Mitch Wilkenson (Harris) who flaunts a page from the diary of John Wilkes Booth (the same who history records as having killed Lincoln). Each of the characters is as flat as he or she can get, the only frisson—a badly cutesy one at that—coming from the bickerings of the two couples—Cage and Kruger, and Voight and Mirren. Sidekick Bartha provides a concession to comedy, coming back in the sequel to make a fool of himself. The film is packed with ciphers and symbols, clues and codes, crypts and vaults, car chases and dashes across Paris, Buckingham Palace, Oval Office and Mt Rushmore.

The plot is illogical to the core, which one would have accepted had the film been a sheer roller-coaster ride, leaving you little time to notice the holes in the plot. In fact, though, the film is so boring that even reacting to all the flaws seems to be too much of an effort. Nothing more than an exercise in inanity, all the film succeeds in doing is giving a rather silly (unintentionally so) picture of Americans, their obsession with royalty, their president (who gets so easily kidnapped and has a secret book he doesn’t seem to pay much attention to) and specially the harebrained FBI agents.

Enjoy !!!

~ by preeti on January 28, 2008.