Nicolas Cage and his
rapidly receding hairline return in the form of the world's oldest, most
enthusiastic Eagle Scout in the enjoyably preposterous adventure sequel National
Treasure: Book Of Secrets, a film that plays like The Da Vinci Code as re-imagined by
well-meaning but clueless high-school history teachers. Like its predecessor,
it's patriotic pornography, with earnest speeches about our country's
distinguished history serving as the money shots. It must have taken tremendous
force of will not to simply subtitle the film U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!.
Comfortably embracing
self-parody, Cage plays a wide-eyed do-gooder who springs into action when his
great-great-grandfather is slandered as a conspirator in a plot to kill Abraham
Lincoln. Teaming up with dad Jon Voight, ex-girlfriend Diane Kruger, and
incongruously non-geeky geeky sidekick Justin Bartha (the only computer nerd in
film history who could moonlight as an underwear model), Cage follows a trail
of clues that lead him to Buckingham Palace, then the White House, and finally
to Mount Vernon, where he must kidnap the President (Bruce Greenwood) in order
to find a book of Presidential secrets and a lost city of gold. Then things
start to get a little silly.
It's a measure of the
film's infectious goofiness that Cage seems altogether more interested in
clearing the name of a long-dead ancestor than in finding a city of gold. The
film affords him some excellent opportunities to unleash his inner ham,
particularly during an epic freak-out at Buckingham Palace and an animated
argument about Lincoln's death with a small boy at a White House Easter-egg
hunt. Screenwriters Cormac and Marianne Wibberley seem
to be challenging themselves to cram as many hilariously convoluted,
over-the-top twists into the film as they possibly can; it must be awfully
liberating never having to worry about plausibility or realism. Still, given
its two-hour-plus running time, Secrets could easily lose 20 minutes, especially
once it runs out of energy toward the end. But it's fun, goofy, and fleet
enough to merit a third go-round. Heck, maybe in the next adventure, Cage could
uncover a conspiracy involving a bunch of pagan bitches and their evil plot to
reap a rich honey harvest. That premise is a proven laugh-getter, albeit of the
unintentional variety.