National Treasure: Book of Secrets (2007) Review

Benjamin Gates must follow a clue left in John Wilkes Booth’s diary to prove that his ancestor was not involved in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

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Set several years after the events in which Benjamin found the Knight’s Templar and became very rich and also famous! This leads to another treasure hunter Mitch Wilkinson attempting to bring him down when he claims to have found a missing page from the diary of John Wilkes Booth which contains clues to the location of the lost city of gold. Benjamin must compete against Mitch to try and find the lost city which leads to a world wide search when France and the United Kingdom are both on the list to find other clues as well as attempting to find clues in the President’s secret book.

Riley Poole had also been enjoying the wealth from the find, but he was not recognised as much as Ben despite his attempts even releasing a book. He is straight by his side though when another treasure hunt is about to take place. Abigail Chase had been in a relationship with Ben but they had recently separated and she had a new boyfriend on the scene. We also get Dr Emily Appleton who is the ex-wife of Patrick and Ben’s mother as she has a high knowledge with the carvings and reference points for this type of search.

I felt as though this film lacked a little bit from the first film, and while it does have plenty of twist and turns to go along with the clues the story just wasn’t as interesting as the first. I guess it is always hard with this type of film to keep it interesting and not just becoming a copy of the first outing. Still watchable enough though and gives enjoyable moments.

In terms of the cast we get the main five back from the first film Nicolas Cage, Diane Kruger, Justin Bartha, Jon Vought and Harvey Keitel. In addition to those we also get Helen Mirren who just quite frankly adds to every single scene she is in as always! Then instead of Sean Bean taking on the bad guy role this time we get Ed Harris and quite frankly picks up where Bean left off with ease of being the bad guy. Ed Harris for me is a criminally underrated actor and I just adore him every single time he is in a film, seriously he is so talented.