The opening sequence of "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" is familiar enough. It is April 14, 1865, Good Friday, and two men enter a tavern in Washington, D.C., seeking a man to decode a cipher. One of the men is a certain likeness of John Wilkes Booth. He exits the tavern and leaves his partner and the code breaker with his diary, in which the cipher is written.
Booth, of course, proceeds to Ford's Theater's presentation of "Our American Cousin." Being a famous actor, and knowing the play well, he awaits a specific line sure to bring uproarious laughter. The character Lord Dundreary delivers the line ("Don't know the manners of good society, eh? Wal, I guess I know enough to turn you inside out, old gal, you sockdologizing old man-trap.") and the audience guffaws. Booth bursts into the presidential balcony, shoots Lincoln in the head, leaps to the stage, shouts "Sic semper tyrannis!" ("Thus always to tyrants," which is the state motto of Virginia) and escapes outside to his horse.
The unfamiliar part is what transpires next, in the tavern. The man working on the cipher in Thomas Gates, the great-great grandfather of Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage), the hero of "National Treasure." Thomas discovers the men seeking his help are members of the Knights of the Golden Circle, a secret Confederate society. He tears the pages out of Booth's diary and throws them into a fire. Booth's partner shoots and kills Thomas and recovers parts of the pages from the fire.
I provide this bit of historical information and historical revision because it is the central tenet of the "National Treasure" franchise: small bits of valuable history surrounded by a swarm of quasi-entertaining historical buffoonery.
When Mitch Wilkinson (Ed Harris) comes forward with a missing piece from the Wilkes diary that appears to implicate Thomas Gates in the conspiracy, Ben must clear his family name. The only way is to corroborate his family legend, that the cipher Thomas started to decode was the first clue in another treasure hunt. Ben's old treasure hunting partners, Riley (Justin Bartha) and Abigail (Diane Kruger) join him, as do his now gung ho father (Jon Voight) and his mother (Helen Mirren).
The treasure is the mythic ancient City of Gold, Cibola. The conspiracy to hide this entire city was massive, and known to many world leaders, but apparently none felt it would be to their advantage to unearth it themselves, despite the fact that they were creating clues so that somebody else could, even though they didn't want anyone to. Throughout history, nobody has had a whiff that they were standing atop a fantastic treasure. That is, until Ben Gates solves the whole mess in a matter of days.
What unfolds is basically the same as what unfolded in the original "National Treasure." The suspension of disbelief required for these movies is stunning, and I suppose that is the point. But still, even half-hearted explanations would be nice to sustain a reality in this fantasy world.
Some highlights of the absurdity:
1) Cibola looks an awful lot like an ancient Mesoamerican city, but is located nowhere near Mexico.
2) The most wanted man in America is able to escape Washington, D.C., travel halfway across the country, apparently overnight and turn up in a national park without being detected.
3) Ben is such a prodigious puzzle master that he decodes an indecipherable riddle based on a hazy French-to-English translation, and does so in less than 30 seconds.
If it seems like I have given away much of the movie's plot, I have not. I have not, for instance, touched upon the film's moniker, The Book of Secrets. The movie exists in a frenzied state of cryptography, discovery and danger, so there is much more to see. Mirren is a nice addition to the cast, as she is the only person (at least at the beginning) who comprehends the unbelievable nature of what is happening. Unfortunately, we never understand exactly what it is Harris wants, and his actions and intentions shift every other scene he appears in. At least we know he is the villain, because these movies require a villain and nobody else fits the profile.
Sockdologizing, by the way, means manipulative, which still doesn't make the line from "Our American Cousin" funny. Nevertheless, the line and the laughter that ensued on Good Friday 1865 did indeed happen, allowing us to hold onto our disbelief for a few minutes after the opening shot. By the end of the movie, we begin to wonder if "National Treasure: Book of Secrets" stumbled upon this truth by accident.