National Treasure: Book of Secrets

National Treasure: Book of Secrets
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Jon Turteltaub
Produced by	Jon Turteltaub Jerry Bruckheimer
Written by	Story Gregory Poirier Terry Rossio Ted Elliott Screenplay Marianne Wibberley & Cormac Wibberley
Starring	Nicolas Cage Justin Bartha Diane Kruger Jon Voight Helen Mirren Ed Harris
Music by	Trevor Rabin
Cinematography	John Schwartzman Amir Mokri
Editing by	William Goldenberg David Rennie
Distributed by	Walt Disney Pictures
Release date(s)	December 21, 2007
Running time	125 min.
Country	United States
Language	English French
Budget	$130,000,000[1]
Gross revenue	$457,363,168
Preceded by	National Treasure

National Treasure: Book of Secrets (titled National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets on the DVD/Blu-ray release) is a 2007 adventure film and is the sequel to the 2004 film National Treasure. It was directed by Jon Turteltaub and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer.

It was stated in the first film's commentary that there were no plans for a sequel, but due to the first film's impressive box-office performance, earning $347.5 million worldwide, a sequel was given the go-ahead in 2005. It took just 38 days of release for the sequel to out-gross the original.

The Motion Picture Association of America rated the film PG for some violence and action.^[2] The film premiered in New York City on December 13, 2007 and was released in the Middle East, Korea, and Taiwan on December 19, 2007. It was released in Australia on December 20, 2007. The film opened in the United States, Canada, Japan, Spain, and Italy on December 21, 2007. It was released in Germany and The Netherlands on January 24, 2008. It was released in the United Kingdom and Denmark on February 8, 2008.

Plot

Five days after the end of the Civil War, John Wilkes Booth and Michael O'Laughlen, both members of the KGC, enter a tavern and approach Thomas Gates (Ben Gates' great-great-grandfather).^[3] They produce a diary containing an encrypted message, and entice Thomas, a well-known puzzle solver, to decode it. Thomas recognizes the message as using the Playfair cipher and begins to translate it. While he does so, Booth leaves for Ford's Theatre to assassinate President Lincoln. Thomas solves the puzzle, a clue to a treasure map, and realizes the men are still loyal to the Confederate cause and have a sinister motive for finding the treasure. Unfortunately, he realizes this too late. O'Laughlen pulls a gun on him, threatening to shoot him if he does not hand over the diary, however he is distracted from Thomas when chaos erupts in the bar over news of Lincoln's assassination. Thomas rips several pages from the diary and throws them in the fireplace. The gunman shoots him and attempts to retrieve the pages, only succeeding in saving a fragment of a page. The dying Thomas gasps, "The war is over," but the man disagrees, stating, "You're wrong about that, the war has only just begun," and rushes from the bar. As he lies dying, Thomas tells his distraught son, Charles Gates, "The debt that all men pay…"

Over 140 years later, Ben Gates is telling his great-great-grandfather's story at a conference on Civilian Heroes to great acclaim until black market dealer Mitch Wilkinson shows one of the 18 missing pages of John Wilkes Booth's diary, with Thomas Gates' name on it, convincing everyone that Thomas was not only a conspirator, but the grand architect of the Lincoln assassination. Ben sets out to prove the innocence of his great-great-grandfather.

Using spectral imaging, Ben discovers a cipher pointing to Édouard Laboulaye hidden on the back of the diary page. He travels to Paris, where he finds a cryptic clue engraved on the torch of the scale model of the Statue of Liberty on the Île des Cygnes in Paris, referring to the two Resolute desks. Ben heads to Buckingham Palace, seeking out the closer of the two desks. With the help of his friend Riley Poole and estranged girlfriend, Abigail Chase, he is able to sneak into the Queen's office to find an ancient wooden plank hidden in the desk. He is then pursued by Wilkinson, who, having broken into his father Patrick Gates' house, has cloned Patrick's cell phone in order to track Ben's whereabouts. Wilkinson eventually obtains the piece, but not before Ben manages to photograph the symbols carved into the plank.

At Ben's insistence, Patrick reluctantly asks his ex-wife, Dr. Emily Appleton, a professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, for help in translating the mysterious glyphs. She does so, but points out that some of the glyphs are partial, leading Ben to conclude another plank must be hidden in the other Resolute desk, which is located in the Oval Office. With the unknowing help of Abigail's new love interest, who works for the White House, Ben and Abigail coax their way into the office to see the desk, where Ben discovers that the second plank is missing. However, he does find a stamp bearing the seal of the Book of Secrets. According to Riley, the Book of Secrets contains documents collected by Presidents for Presidents' eyes only, covering such controversial subjects as the JFK assassination, Watergate, and Area 51.

To find the location of the book, Ben manipulates the President's staff into moving his birthday party to Mount Vernon by booking all of the other approved locations. When Ben sneaks into the party, he convinces the President to follow him into a secret tunnel under the House where he confronts him about the book; the President sympathetically warns Ben that his actions will be interpreted as an attempt to kidnap the President, confirming a conclusion Ben and his companions have already reached; Ben is now wanted for committing a federal offense. Appealing to the President's well-known love for history, Ben convinces the President to reveal the location of the book (which turns out to be in the Library of Congress). The President also tells him to read page 47 as well as the information he needs. In the book, Ben finds a picture of the missing plank from the desk and an entry by President Coolidge, who found it in 1924, had it destroyed, and comissioned Gutzon Borglum to carve Mount Rushmore to erase the map's landmarks in order to protect the treasure.

At Mount Rushmore, Ben, Riley, Abigail, and Patrick meet Mitch, who has kidnapped Ben's mother. Mitch provides a clue to the entrance of a cave containing the legendary native American city of gold, Cíbola. Despite several traps they manage to find the city, but rising flood waters force them to leave. In the last room before the exit, a mechanism requires one person to stay behind while the others could leave. Mitch forces everyone to let him go first by threatening to kill Abigail with a knife, and a terrified Ben agrees to stay behind. However, rising water forces Mitch to be the last person left. Ben tries to help him out, but Mitch cannot come to Ben without the door closing. Mitch decides to sacrifice himself and allow the others to escape the flooding cavern, and Ben agrees to give him credit for finding the treasure. Ben clears his family's name with the discovery and is cleared of all charges when the President tells everyone that Ben saved his life after the door to the tunnel closed accidentally. Ben also ensures Mitch receives joint credit for the find. The President then asks Ben about what he read on page 47 of the Book of Secrets, to which Ben states that it is "life altering".

Clues and meanings

• The debt that all men pay — These are the final words that Thomas Gates says to his young son as he is dying. "The debt that all men pay" is death. This is the five-letter word needed to solve the Playfair cipher, which ends up being the next clue: Laboulaye Lady.
• Laboulaye Lady — Laboulaye is the man who created the idea for the Statue of Liberty. Three statues were originally created, one being in New York City, and the other two being in Paris, France: the Luxembourg Gardens and in the Seine, south of the Eiffel Tower. The Seine statue is referred to as 'Laboulaye's Lady', though there is no evidence that Laboulaye referred to it as such (Édouard René de Laboulaye died in May of 1883, 6 years before the Seine statue was presented to the French by Americans. The Luxembourg Gardens statue was the original model for the New York statue, and might have made more sense, otherwise Bartholdi the statues sculptor, a friend of Laboulaye's, could have been referenced as he lived until 1904. It was likely that Laboulaye's anti-slavery sentiment and the fact that he conceived the statue warranted his use in the film.). In the film, Ben and Riley discover an inscription on the torch, written in French.
• Across the sea these twins stand resolute to preserve what we are looking for. -Laboulaye, 1876 — This is the message on the torch of the Statue of Liberty in Paris. The resolute twins refer to the Resolute desks. The year 1876 is a combination that has to be inputted to access a plank of wood with another clue on it. The first desk is used in Buckingham Palace in the Queen's study, and the other is used by the President of the United States in the Oval Office.
• The entrance shall only be revealed under a cloudless rain. — The treasure hunters find that when water is spilled on the Black Hills of Black Hills National Forest, the shading of the hills changes under sunlight, revealing an engraved eagle leading to a gap in the rocks.
• Surrender your hand to the heart of the warrior. — Ben must place his hand inside the dark, narrow gap in the rocks in the middle of the figure of an eagle, and lift a latch hidden inside in order to open the path to a cavern that stretches far beneath the Black Hills.

Cast

• Nicolas Cage as Benjamin Franklin Gates
• Justin Bartha as Riley Poole
• Diane Kruger as Abigail Chase
• Jon Voight as Patrick Gates
• Helen Mirren as Emily Appleton
• Ed Harris as Mitch Wilkinson
• Harvey Keitel as FBI Agent Peter Sadusky
• Bruce Greenwood as U.S. President
• Joel Gretsch as Thomas Gates
• Christian Camargo as John Wilkes Booth
• Brent Briscoe as Michael O'Laughlen

Historic locations

The Statue of Liberty in Paris, France

The following sites appear in the film:

• Mount Rushmore
• The Library of Congress
• The Paris replica of the Statue of Liberty near Grenelle Bridge
• White House
• Buckingham Palace
• Mount Vernon
• Ford's Theatre
• University of Maryland, College Park
• Custer State Park, South Dakota

Music and Soundtrack

Main article: National Treasure: Book of Secrets (soundtrack)

The score to National Treasure: Book of Secrets was composed by Trevor Rabin and recorded with the Hollywood Studio Symphony at the Todd AO Scoring Stage in October and November 2007. It was the last feature film score to be recorded at the stage before it was closed down.^[4]

Reception

Critics initially gave the film mixed reviews. Rotten Tomatoes reported that 32% of critics gave the film positive reviews based on 101 reviews, for a rating of "rotten".^[5] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 48 out of 100, based on 25 reviews^[6], while British film critics disputed the implication of British involvement on the Confederate side in the American Civil War.^[7] It opened at number one with $16,739,339 on its first day,^[8] and $44,783,772 its first weekend,^[9] the third largest Christmas opening.^[10] It reached the $100 million mark in eight days,^[9] half the time it took the first film.^[11] It stayed at number one for 17 days before dropping to number two,^[9] and grossed $457,364,600 worldwide, making it the eighth highest grossing film of 2007.^[12]

Novelizations

Disney Press published an official novelization of the screenplay titled National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets The Junior Novel on November 6, 2007.^[13] Parts of the story in the novel version differ slightly from what was actually filmed, owing to changes being made in the screenplay prior to and during production. For example, in the novel, Ben and Abigail photograph the wooden plank found hidden in the Queen's desk and leave it behind, with the car chase following. But in the movie, they take the plank with them on the chase.

Also published on the same day as the official novelization was a companion youth novel Changing Tides: A Gates Family Mystery by Catherine Hapka. Its story is set in England in the year 1612 and is the first in a series of planned historical novels about the Gates family. The epilogue from Changing Tides is included at the back of the National Treasure book.^[14] The second youth novel by Hapka, Midnight Ride: A Gates Family Mystery, was published on March 8, 2008.^[15]

DVD release

National Treasure: Book of Secrets was released on DVD, UMD, and Blu-ray Disc on May 20, 2008^[16] (June 2, 2008 in the UK).^[17] The film has been retitled National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets for its DVD and Blu-ray release. The film's official website has also been changed accordingly.

Sequel

Director Jon Turteltaub said that the filmmaking team will take its time on another National Treasure sequel,^[18] but Disney has already registered the domains for NationalTreasure3DVD.com and NationalTreasure4DVD.com.^[19] Though the second film ended with the question about page 47 of the President's book of secrets, Turteltaub responded in a press interview that the idea was not set in stone as the basis for National Treasure 3.^[20]

References

See also

• Abraham Lincoln assassination
• National Treasure

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: National Treasure: Book of Secrets

• National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets Official Site
• Official UK Competition site
• National Treasure: Book of Secrets at the Internet Movie Database
• National Treasure: Book of Secrets at Rotten Tomatoes
• National Treasure: Book of Secrets at Metacritic

• National Treasure: Book of Secrets at Box Office Mojo
• National Treasure: Book of Secrets at Allmovie
• National Treasure 2 DVD and Blu-Ray Site