Riley: Ben, remember the plan.Ībigail: And what you've decided is that you don't need it.īen: You're the one who's making a scene right now.Ībigail: I.I'm not making a scene right now! But it's kind of a bad time right now.Ībigail: Okay, I.I just flew all the way to London to offer my help. Riley: Drop Her, lose her.īen: That's very nice. There is no ticking clock here other than Mitch and his goons being hot on Ben’s trail, again for no logical reason.Riley: Abigail? What's she doing here?Ībigail: Your dad called me. No credible reason is ever given for the huge race. Here much of the cast - in a repeat of the earlier film’s climax in catacombs beneath Manhattan - hang from decaying ladders and dodge falling debris in an underground space the size of the Grand Canyon.īut the thrill is gone as everyone is slavishly following an action memo dictated by marketing concerns and boxoffice demographics rather than cinematic invention. The story requires Ben and company to jet to Paris to examine a Statue of Liberty replica in the Luxembourg Gardens, break into Buckingham Palace, then the White House Oval Office, kidnap the president (Bruce Greenwood), ransack the Library of Congress and finally discover an American Indian archeological site implausibly located under Mount Rushmore. Which in turns ignites the burners of Jon Voight as Ben’s eminent (though technologically challenged) professor-father Patrick Mirren as his mom, who for plot convenience can translate ancient Indian texts Diane Kruger as ex-girlfriend Abigail, who for plot convenience happens to be a history archivist Justin Bartha’s Riley, a techno-whiz who can break into any place, no problem and Harvey Keitel as the FBI agent who cannot decide whether to arrest Ben or pin a medal on him. Since a new piece of evidence brought forward by Ed Harris’ rather suspicious Mitch Wilkinson appears to implicate poor Thomas Gates in the assassination, this is cause alone for Ben to spring into action. Wouldn’t you know a Gates ancestor named Thomas was at the center of the action on April 14, 1865, and that the assassination was really about treasure maps and Mason secrets rather than the most heinous criminal act in American history. This one centers on the assassination of President Lincoln by John Wilkes Booth. Only Cage’s Ben Gates can penetrate their secrets. The central notion, derived from the original “National Treasure,” is that those dastardly Masons buried secret codes and puzzles - treasure maps, as it were - into major American documents, monuments and even furniture.
The story, more a blueprint for stunts than a coherent tale, was cobbled together by the husband-wife team of Marianne and Cormac Wibberley with the story credit divided among the Wibberleys, Gregory Poirier, Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio. Yet director Turteltaub stages a sequence that tries to outdo “Bullitt,” “The French Connection” and all the “Bourne” movies combined in the heart of London without a single bobby showing up. Take a major set piece: If you are going to stage a slam-bang chase sequence with cars smashing aside all objects, inanimate or human, guns blazing and no care for life or limb, the one city where this will not work is London: 9/11 cameras are everywhere on its tiny, pedestrian-choked streets and lanes, and security is the most stringent in Europe. Yes, action-fantasy is all you can call a film that abandons any semblance of reality.
This yields well-photographed tourist sites, several cliff-hanging sequences - a few literally that - and a capable returning cast playing now-familiar roles in an action-fantasy. The film jets from one major historical monument of Western civilization to another with Nicolas Cage’s Benjamin Franklin Gates racing against time to solve an ancient puzzle for essentially no real reason.
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