National Treasure: Book of Secrets

Warning: Two things may have influenced my opinion of this film
1. This was my first time in an all digital theater watching images projected against a screen that didn't come from film.
2. This was the first movie I have seen in a theater in five months.

I remember going to the theater as a kid and seeing a movie that was just pure fun. They were movies that you don't expect any major dramatic or cinematic contribution. You demanded entertainment and it would always deliver. I remember staring wide-eyed at "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" and wanting to understand all about it. What was the history behind it? The strange locations and exotic peoples always fueled my young imagination.

Where have those movies gone?

It is a rare treat when a movie like "National Treasure" can inspire that feeling in me again. More often than not, the movies seem to be produced by one person, serial action junkie/producer Jerry Bruckheimer.

Warning: It might be best to watch the first "National Treasure" before you see the second one.

In "Book of Secrets" the second installment of the "National Treasure" franchise, we see Bruckheimer alums Nicolas Cage and Ed Harris back together on the screen. Cage does his usual stick as Ben Gates the now "successful" treasure hunter and Harris is just plain evil/good/evil/?.

Without spoiling the plot (think a lot of treasure) we see our intrepid team from the first movie find yet another hidden treasure from a bunch of cryptic clues left by our forefathers. While the premise is very far fetched, every step of this movie seemed to flow and make some weird form of sense while I was watching it. It was a movie that was fun as well as historically interesting. It made me want to go to wikipedia and learn a thing or two about the ciphers, places, documents, and historical figures that were mentioned in the movie (the bulk of which did exist). I hope that the imaginations of more than a few teens were jump started and that they went out and wanted to learn about these topics as well. If even a few of them do that, this movie will have served its purpose.

To me, the overriding theme in my mind is that a movie set in America (though we do jet off briefly to England and France) can seem as exciting than the more "exotic" locations that show up in "Indiana Jones" or "James Bond" movies. America is so rich with history that I take my hat off to Director Jon Turteltaub and Jerry Bruckheimer for helping us to rediscover it.

The breakthrough performances in my mind goes to both Jon Voight and Helen Mirren as Ben Gate's parents. Not since Sean Connery went with Harrison Ford on his "Last Crusade" has integrating parents into a story "worked" for me. Finally we see accomplished older actors doing something other than cameos as the "wise teacher/clue provider".

This movie is rated PG and it should be ok for kids. It might help to spark a belief that American History can be fun and exciting.

Oh, and a big hat off to Disney for doing a "Goofy" short at the beginning of the movie. That really worked for me. It got me in the right mindset to enjoy the main attraction.