Back in 2004 Director Jon Turteltaub gave us a great little flick called National Treasure, ok so it wasn’t so little. The film was a huge surprise hit and went on to make millions at the box office. Featuring a very strong cast, an intriguing story, a lot of action, and overall provided a feel good sense. So what does Hollywood do when they have a hit??? Well they copy the recipe again and call it a sequel. Today I will review National Treasure: Book of Secrets.

The story focuses around Nicolas Cage’s Character of Ben Gates. Here Ben is presenting new information about John Wilkes Booth and the 18 pages missing from Booth’s diary. During the speech a man named of Mitch Wilkinson, Ed Harris, stands up and presents a single missing page of John Wilkes Booth’s diary. Thomas Gates, Ben’s great-grandfather, is mentioned on the page. It shows that Ben’s great-grandfather was a co-conspirator in Abraham Lincoln’s murder. When doing more research, the conspiracy takes Ben, Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger), and Riley Poole (Justin Bartha) to Buckingham Palace (which they break into). They discover a plank that has early Native American writing on it. The plank has only one symbol that Patrick Gates can identify. The symbol is Cibola meaning the City of Gold. In order to define the rest they have to go to Ben’s mother, Emily Appleton (Helen Mirren). After 32 years this brings back some old arguments between Ben’s mom and dad, Patrick Gates (Jon Voight). This leads our team to the next clue, one which is hidden in the President’s desk in the Oval Office of the White House.

After some serious sneaking, actually the scene is pretty funny, they learn that the second plank has been removed, and its code placed into The President’s Book. The President’s Book is said to be a book by Presidents for Presidents, it contains all the nations secrets, and hence the name of the movie. In order to gain access to the book Gates et al have to actually kidnap the President of the United States. With Wilkinson close on their trail, they find the book in the Library of Congress. Using the book’s clues it leads them to the conspiracy of Mount Rushmore where the next clue is hidden among the hills. According to the Book, President Calvin Coolidge had the faces carved in Rushmore so that no one could ever find the City of Gold. When they get there they find out that they must work with Wilkinson since he has some clues of his own. Together the group, Gates and Wilkinson alike, descend into Rushmore to discover if the city really does exist?

Continuing the trend of movies, one in which a sequel never seems to quite capture the precision and power of the original, National Treasure: Book of Secrets fails to make the impression the first one did.  While the film is good, it just feels like we’ve been here before, done that already. Acting is very strong, featuring both moments of action and comic relief, again like the first movie, Justin Bartha really steals the show. Book of Secrets also features a lot more shoot em up action over its predecessor, which is nice since we are watching a Blu-ray. If you have not seen this movie yet, grab it on a Saturday night, it makes a great popcorn flick.

Video

Book of Secrets is presented in a 1080p/AVC MPEG-4 video, and framed at 2.40:1. The presentation is generally strong and consistent throughout. It’s not the demo type material of my last review, I Am Legend, but still pleases the eyes. Sharpness and detail are great, which should be expected from a new release. I did have various issue with some of the colors though, especially skin tones during several scenes. Color often seemed over saturated and in turn made a few colors almost bleed off of the screen. I have never had this problem with any other disc, so I know it wasn’t the settings of my TV. In all honesty it was minor, but for the review sake I’ll mention it. In addition to the saturation I also noticed some night scenes were not as clear as they could have been. The problem seems to exist in the softness of the black which almost destroys minor fine detail.

Audio

Audio is presented in an English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Surround track (48kHz/24-bit), and it’s pretty decent. As expected for hi-def audio the levels are all where they should be. Highs are clean and crisp, lows hit when they should, and mids fill in the gaps. Surround channels are pleasant and place you in the center of the action, this helps support the epic score. Cranking it up may just have the neighbors knocking at your door.

Special Features

Disney has put a lot into the extras, so you won’t be disappointed if you’re a fan of the series. All the video extras are also in full 1080 resolution, a nice bonus.

• Audio Commentary - Director Jon Turteltaub talks shop; brings up some of the hurdles in filming and touches on cast and crew. Overall its ok, but nothing ground breaking.

• Documentary: “Secrets of a Sequel” – A lengthy one hour piece that features everything and anything National Treasure. It’s broken down into 8 mini pieces which is nice if you want to fast forward stuff you’re not interested in.

• Deleted Scenes – Quite a few extra scenes are featured, there are 7 in all, and 2 are Blu exclusive.

• “The Treasure Reel” - 5 minutes of bloopers and outtakes.

• Theatrical Trailers - Disney includes trailers for Tinker Bell, Sleeping Beauty, Wall•E and The Nightmare Before Christmas.

• “Book of History: Fact and Fiction of National Treasure” – A cool interactive game which lets you blend the movie with real life history. It’s educational and relatively fun, so I guess you can’t complain.

Final Thoughts

If you’re expecting a movie as fresh and inventive as National Treasure one, you’ll be a little disappointed. Many of the scenes and ideas just feel re-used and re-hashed, but it is a sequel right! If you’re looking for a great movie to just crash in front of the TV with then you won’t be disappointed. National Treasure: Book of Secrets isn’t boring, and it has a lot of action and history, yes it actually makes learning fun, so I can’t complain too much. The Blu-ray presentation is strong, not the best the format has to offer, but still miles ahead of the SD version.