National Treasure: Book Of Secrets is a great sequel to National Treasure. I wasn't expecting much from this movie. The previews came off as a bit cheesy and silly. I'm also not a huge Nicolas Cage fan. I generally don't appreciate his style of acting. But despite these things I was pleasantly surprised with National Treasure: Book Of Secrets. All of the same characters were back -- at least the good guys -- and they have been developed a bit more. The story is involved and fun. There's enough puzzling and problem solving to keep the viewers' interest. There is also quite a bit of intense action in the movie. The balancing platform scene was particularly innovative.

Without giving too much away let me recap the story. Through a convoluted set of circumstance an accusation is made that Thomas Gates (Ben Gates' great-grandfather) was the mastermind conspirator behind the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. To redeem their ancestor's name Ben and Patrick Gates (Nicolas Cage and John Voight) begin a search to find the hidden treasure that Thomas was hiding. The hope is that once the treasure is found his name will be cleared.

The clues start right away with the deciphering of some coded text. That clue leads to the mysterious Book Of Secrets. This is a book that only the President Of The United States knows about. In fact, even the president denies that the book exists. Despite the secrecy Ben Gates convinces the president to show him the book. Again, more clues. These lead the search party on a subterranean chase till they eventually find the treasure.

Along the way we discover that the people who accused Ben's great-grandfather were doing it as a ruse. Their intention was to motivate Ben to search for the treasure, which he did. Then, assuming he would find it they intended to steal it from him.

It is rare when this happens but in this case I believe that the sequel was better than the original. National Treasure was pretty good but National Treasure: Book Of Secrets was much better. Despite my initial misgivings about the movie I am now interested in finding out about the next National Treasure movie (page 47?).

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