National Treasure 2 - Book of Secrets (Widescreen)
by Jon Turtletaub
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DVD details
Actor: Diane Krueger, Ed Harris, Harvey Keitel, Helen Mirren, Nicolas CageDirector: Jon Turtletaub
Brand: National
Cinematographer: Amir Mokri
Cinematographer: John Schwartzman
Cinematographer: Josh Bleibtreu
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); French (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language); French (Original Language); Spanish (Original Language); French (Dubbed); Spanish (Dubbed)
Format: Anamorphic, Color, Dolby, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 124 minutes
Published: 2008-05-01
DVD Release Date: 2008-05-20
Audience Rating: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Buena Vista Home Entertainment / Touchstone
Product features:
- Join Nicolas Cage on a heart-pounding adventure that will have you on the edge of your seat in a race to find the Lost City of Gold. Grounded in history, imbued with myth and mystery, Disney's NATIONAL TREASURE 2: BOOK OF SECRETS takes you on a globe-trotting quest full of adrenaline-pumping twists and turns -- all leading to the final clue in a mysterious and highly guarded book containing ce
DVD Reviews of National Treasure 2 - Book of Secrets (Widescreen)
DVD Review: Didn't enjoy this one at all.
Summary: 3 Stars
This is another movie of our times filled with all the holes in a plot that neither producers or audience mind at all with the same sarcastic putting someone down with a sexi smile.
And it's true to Disney; the perfect happily ever after ending where two separated couples (in the same family nevertheless) decide to love each other all over again. Neato. Disney is top notch with fairy tales like the colors and details of a Thomas Kincaid canvas.
Even the awkward underdog, Gates' sidekick gets a gal at the end!
National Treasure 2 is filled with contradictions between true history and what was made for the screen.
And as one who is proud of my own heritage, I noticed that in the scene near the end when the president and Gates are in the hanger, all the state flags of the Union can be seen in the foreground, all except of course, poor Mississippi. If you remember the flag's design, you'll understand this pathetic attempt at political correctness. Disney is top notch with political correctness!
I think a greater audience, however will notice that the luck of actually surviving the dozens of near misses are pretty far fetched to the woefully unreal. On one hand you have fiction and on the other you have the bullet proof luck of the Road Runner's Coyote.
Here are some other unnatural parts of the film that I found more than a little distracting.
-They found oil in the chambers of the lost city of gold to light their lamps. For one, ground oil had not been discovered until the 19th century in America and was rarely used as a lighting method. Whale oil was used and no way indians could have had whale oil in South Dakota.
-The stone monuments and paths in the so-called city of gold within Mount Rushmore did not contain stone native to that region such as limestone.
-It seemed too easy for Gates and his posy to avoid both the Royal Guard in Buckingham Palace and the White House and the FBI. They had the luck of spies.
-The same moment they decided to capture the president just so happened to be the one moment where the president would be speaking at a specific place where Gates knew there was a secret tunnel to accomplish it.
-Many of the clues and riddles were solved way too quick, even for a character like Gates. They were much to general for him to discover meaning in less than a minute. Like for example atop Mount Rushmore when he discovered in twenty-seconds what a cloudless rain meant. It took him less than twenty seconds to find the exact one-foot of space on the giant summit of Mount Rushmore to poor the water on to the rock to reveal the cave opening.
-Within the mountain they are swinging around on ropes that were thousands of years old. Yeah...
-Isn't it strange how Gates' family history had been involved in one way or another with both the secret treasure of Alexander hidden by the forefathers and eighty-nine years later in a completely different treasure hidden scene, the Gates were involved with the City of Gold?
The odds are impossible sense neither story had a connection to it nor neither ancestor had been involved except through chance.
-Lastly, it is a laughable chance that the expert on the vague yet specific era of Native writing that Gates needed to decode a clue just so happened to be his Mom.
And I have a historical bone to pick with this movie.
Characters at the beginning of the movie refer to Southern sympathizers in the North as traitors against the Union and villains associated with Lincoln's assignation.
To call men working for the independence of a set of states from their former government traitors would be no different than calling those who worked for the independence of the set of colonies from England traitors.
"If we were wrong in our contest, then the Declaration of Independence of 1776 was a grave mistake and the revolution to which it led was a crime. If Washington was a patriot; Lee cannot have been a rebel."-Major General Wade Hampton, Confederate Cavalry
The "traitors" referred to in this film were basically a high-organized network of Northern citizens during the civil war that were committed to helping a new nation achieve its independence from the Union and obtain peace and an end to the bloodshed.
A character in the film referred to them as Southern extremists. They were portrayed as those responsible for Booth's four years too late point blank shot. Actually, there is no evidence that ever existed which could truly link the Knights of the Golden Circle or any Confederate group with the assignation of Lincoln.
In another scene in the film a child stands his ground against the main character, Gates, arguing that Lincoln's death had been master minded by members of the Federal Government by pointing out that on the night Lincoln was shot, his bodyguard was strangely absent and that the one bridge unguarded by Federal troops that evening gave Booth his easy escape. Yet, the main character, with a chilling similarity to many of today's revisionists reproved with the more accepted teachings when in truth, the young character's argument has footing in historical evidence.
In the movie's opening scene, a subtitle reads that the Civil War had been over for five days on April 14th. On April 14th the armies and navy of the Confederate states, with the exception of the Army of Northern Virginia were still active in the field. The Confederate government, led by Davis, continued to operate even while evading Grant's forces in Virginia and North Carolina. Civil War combat and the maneuvering of both Confederate and Union forces did not end until at least a month later. Brig. General Stand Watie, the highest-ranking Native American officer in the Civil War, was the last to formally surrender a Confederate land force on the date of June 23, 1865. The Confederate raider, CSS Shenandoah after being the only Civil War ship to of completely circled to globe, did not bring down their flag until docking in Liverpool, England, in November.
Despite what happened on 9th or 14th of April of 1865, the war continued.
In the movie, the character Gates boasts that his ancestor, killed by a Southern bad guy, had died for his country. To be perfectly technical, his ancestor's character was killed defending a country whose cause was to destroy another's independence.
Though the film is not based on the Civil War, it includes many of the revisionist barbs found in films that center on the topic.
What if the careless and off handed slandering towards the South in National Treasure 2 was directed towards the North instead? What if the character of Gates had, instead of the original plot, embarked on a treasure hunt to prove that his ancestors was not among the officers in Kilpatrick's 1864 raid to assassinate President Davis? What if a Unionist group in the South had been portrayed as traitors?
When you take a moment to imagine how this would offend you, understand then, why I feel that films like this are offensive to those of us that feel compelled to defend our heritage. Or any devoted to historical truth.
Description of National Treasure 2 - Book of Secrets (Widescreen)
Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage) sets out to find the lost 18 pages from the diary of Abraham Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth. One of the 18 missing pages has been discovered by Jeb Wilkinson (Ed Harris). On that page are the names of the Lincoln assassination conspirators. Thomas Gates, Ben Gates' great-great-grandfather, is listed on the page. After discovering this, Ben does not want Thomas Gates to be remembered "as a conspirator in the assassination of the man who brought this nation together." His quest to clear his family's name leads to unexpected twists and turns. Agent Sadusky (Harvey Keitel) tells Ben that a secret book has the information he needs. The president's "book of secrets" holds documents, for presidents' eyes only, of all the nations secrets; from the truth behind the JFK conspiracy, the missing minutes from the Watergate tapes, and Area 51. When Ben's request to see the book is denied, he says he must kidnap the president. Each clue leads him closer "to a discovery that the world isn't ready to believe."Less engrossing than its 2004 predecessor National Treasure, Jon Turteltaub?s busy sequel National Treasure: Book of Secrets is nevertheless a colorful and witty adventure, another race against overwhelming odds for the answer to a historical riddle. Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage), the treasure hunter who feverishly sought, in the first film, the whereabouts of a war chest hidden by America?s forefathers, is now charged with protecting family honor. When a rival (Ed Harris) offers alleged proof that Gates? ancestor, Thomas Gates, was not a Civil War-era hero but a participant in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Ben and his father (Jon Voight) and crew (Justin Bartha, Diane Kruger) hopscotch through Paris, London, Washington DC, and South Dakota to gather evidence refuting the claim. The film is most fun when the hunt, as in National Treasure, squeezes Ben into such impossible situations as examining twin desks in the queen?s chambers in Buckingham Palace and the White House?s Oval Office, or kidnapping an American president (Bruce Greenwood) for a few minutes of frank talk. Helen Mirren, the previous year's Oscar winner for Best Actress, wisely joins the cast of a likely hit film as Ben?s archaeologist mother, long-estranged from Voight?s character but as feisty as the rest of the family. Returning director Turteltaub takes excellent advantage of his colorful backdrops in European capitals and the always-eerie Mount Rushmore, and oversees some wildly imaginative sets for this dramedy?s feverish third act in an audacious and completely unexpected, legendary setting. If National Treasure: Book of Secrets doesn?t feel quite as crisp and unique as its predecessor, it is still ingenious and wry enough to laugh a bit at itself. --Tom Keogh
Stills from National Treasure: Book of Secrets (click for larger image)
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