Blu-Balled: I've Got a Secret -- National Treasure: Book of Secrets

If there’s one type of fiction I have total, unabashed affection for, it’s the Treasure Hunting story (see my Uncharted entry for further details). Whether it’s their exotic locales, emphasis on problem solving, or healthy blend of adventure and humor, Treasure Hunting stories are some of my favorite slices of cinematic escapism. Not every Treasure Hunting movie is created equal, however, and not every film can be Romancing the Stone. It is with mixed feelings, then, that I bring up National Treasure: Book of Secrets. Not because I don’t like it, but because it’s so bad, and I still like it.

National Treasure: Book of Secrets picks up shortly after the first movie ends, with Benjamin Franklin Gates (Nicholas Cage) and his father, Patrick Henry Gates (Jon Voight), giving a presentation on their ancestor, Thomas Jefferson Gates (this movie is chock full of naming I See What You Did There’s). An attendant revealing himself to be Mitch Wilkinson (Ed Harris) stands up and accuses Thomas Gates of being the mastermind behind the Lincoln assassination. Worse, he has proof: a missing page of the John Wilkes Booth’s diary, with Thomas Gates’ name among the conspirators.

Ben and Patrick know the truth, though: that Thomas Gates was a hero, who died trying to prevent the Confederacy from finding a massive treasure that would have helped turn the tide of the Civil War. In order to restore the Gates family’s good name, Ben and Patrick need to find the treasure and prove Thomas’ innocence.

For a paper-thin excuse to go out and find more treasure, it's not bad.

This, of course, requires getting the gang from the first movie back together: Riley (Justin Bartha), Ben’s techno-savvy protégé, who all but wears a T-shirt with the words “COMIC RELIEF” written on it; Agent Sadusky (Harvey Keitel), an FBI member who assists Ben in lieu of pursuing him this time; and Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger), Ben’s old beau, who left him for his Nicholas Cage-level of social ineptitude. Joining the cast is Ben’s mother Emily (Helen Mirren), an expert in ancient languages (par for the course in stories like this).

A large part of the franchise’s appeal is how it integrates Dan Brown-esque conspiracy plots with American history. The first film was all about Revolutionary history, with Gates and co. traipsing about the East Coast to places like the Liberty Bell. Book of Secrets is trenched firmly in a Civil War setting, with the Lincoln assassination used as the plot’s main narrative thrust. While we don’t find out that Gettysburg is secretly the site of the Fountain of Youth (I can imagine the dialogue for that one: “The Conquistadors had it all wrong! It wasn’t Florida, it was Pennsylvania!”), Book of Secrets still exhibits Treasure's brand of over-the-topness, and the film is better for it.

"No, we're not looking for a 'crystal skull'."

I have fun with the National Treasure movies, but it would be remiss to think of them as anything revolutionary. Though fun and worthwhile, there are definitely aspects of Book of Secrets that could stand improvement.

Take, for example, the clues leading to the treasure. Treasure Hunting story formula dictates that the clues involve lateral thinking, but it’s also an unofficial rule that they be cryptic and mystical-sounding as well. Book of Secrets really likes the cryptic and mystical-sounding aspect, because many of the clues sound like the writers were playing Madlibs when they came up with them (“Okay, I need a noun!” “How about ‘twin’?” “Hey, that’s a good one! Now I need aaaan adjective.” “Um, okay, how aboouuuut, uh, ‘resolute’?” “Yes! Perfect! Alright, let’s go to lunch.”). One of the clues states, “The entrance shall only be revealed under a cloudless rain. Surrender your hand to the heart of the warrior.” Well and good, but the clue in question came from a letter written by Queen Victoria. Huh??? This isn’t some ancient language that was translated into an archaic form of English, it’s the bloody Queen. Surely she could have said something like, “Third rock from the left, chaps.”

I dunno what it says, but I bet it reads like a fortune cookie.

Speaking of the writing, the plot could have been massaged a bit before the movie went into production. For example, Book of Secrets ultimately deals with the search for Cibola, a lost city of gold (I was unaware that there was more than one). Fine, cool, chasing after a well-worn, if reliable, MacGuffin; hell, I can think of at least three different projects off the top of my head where people go looking for El Dorado in some form or another. My pause comes from the revelation that (SPOILER ALERT) Cibola is located in the Black Hills of South Dakota, specifically inside of Mount Rushmore. “They carved Mount Rushmore to erase the map's landmarks!” cries one character. “Mount Rushmore was a cover-up,” breathes another, heavily. What??? Certainly there are more practical ways to make a mountain look like something else.

There are also the usual slew of logistical problems that pop up in escapist entertainment like this. Things like the apparent lack of police during a heated car chase between Wilkinson and Gates in Paris. Or an apparent lack of security cameras in either the Oval Office or Buckingham Palace. Or the apparent ease in which Ben and co. can tie up an entire city’s hotel chains. The list goes on.

I'm imagining a sequel where we discover that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in retaliation for destroying the map to Shangri-La.

What makes these complaints more or less irrelevant, though, is the fun and craftsmanship brought to the rest of the table. Book of Secrets is better-cast than it has any right to be, with excellent performances from Cage, Voight, Kruger, Mirren, Keitel, and Harris, all of whom appear to be having a ball while making this film. The movie strikes a good balance between action and humor without straying too far into either territory, and Bartha’s well-timed performance as Riley has me in stitches every time I watch it. Sets, stunts, the whole nine is well-executed to the very last. Even if the movie doesn’t have a brain in its empty, conspiracy-laden head, it still knows how to have a good time.

This is ultimately what National Treasure: Book of Secrets is: a good time. A live-action, two-hour episode of “DuckTales,” sans Uncle Scrooge, plus US history and Dr. Stanley Goodspeed. A movie for playing in the background while you and your friends play Apples to Apples, occasionally paying attention to it and making an off-hand comment about it. Incidentally, this is why I bought it, and as such, I am satisfied with my purchase. Though not the best of its kind, National Treasure: Book of Secrets is still a Treasure Hunting story, and I still love it, Rushmore-shaped warts and all.

Blu-ray Breakdown:

Where purchased: Debo’s Pawn on Mendenhall in Bozeman

How much: $8

Favorite character: Riley

Favorite scene: Ben and Abigail break into the Queen’s study, while Riley acts as in-the-ear hacker guy

Rating: ***/****

Duck Tales! Woo-ooo! – Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune

Summer is well under way, and so is Blockbuster Movie season. We've had a fine crop this year, with "Iron Man 2" kicking off in May, "Prince of Persia" helping lead June in (and depending on your preferences, "Sex And The City 2"), and everyone raving on about "Inception" (which I'll get around to seeing at some point). However, with the exception of "Prince of Persia," there haven't been many good adventure movies; most of the films promising adventure and romance have fallen flat on their faces (see The Killers, Knight And Day, The Bounty Hunter, etc). To my rescue comes Uncharted, an excellent summer blockbuster experience at an excellent time.

For those not in the know (and it's worth reestablishing even if you are), Uncharted is an action-adventure game in the vein of adventure serials from the 1930's and recent movies inspired by them ("Raiders of the Lost Ark," "Romancing the Stone," etc). It combines platforming and exploration with cover-based gun battles à la Gears of War, and serves it over a lush, tropical environment that drips with the feeling of summer escapism.

As far back as I can remember, I've had a soft spot for treasure-hunting stories. I blame it on "Duck Tales."

The plot is pure pulp. You play as Nathan Drake (Nolan North), descendent of the famed explorer Sir Frances Drake and amateur treasure-hunter in his own right. The game opens with Nathan discovering the coffin of Sir Frances Drake, only to find it completely empty, except for a diary from Drake, detailing that he did not die, but in fact set out for one last discovery. From there, we follow Nathan as he attempts to find the treasure written about in Drake's diary, assisted by his partner Victor "Sully" Sullivan (Richard McGonagle) and journalist Elena Fisher (Emily Rose). The trio explores South American ruins and solves ancient puzzles, all while fending off a rival group of treasure hunters.

Uncharted is a deliberately and ambitiously cinematic game, which is to say that it aspires to its movie heritage much more so than other games "inspired" by the works of cinema. There are many instances during the game when the camera pans back to let you drool at the environment, and dialogue between characters is reminiscent of movies from the 40's, with characters bantering back and forth and generally sounding much livelier than your average game protagonists.

Speaking of the protagonists, Uncharted contains three of my new favorite game characters. I love Nolan North's everyman portrayal of Nathan Drake (heck, he's spent most of the last three years reprising the role!), and he has an effortless charm I couldn't help but like; he basically does for the half-tucked T-shirt what Indy did for the Fedora. McGonagle's Sully is a gruff, older figure often involved in movies like this, but his crotchety manner is endearing. Rose's Elena is a character all-too rare in gaming: a strong, independent woman who holds her own in the action. Far from Princess Peach, Elena kicks ass right along with the boys, helping Nathan in a firefight rather than letting him mop things up himself. Together, they form an ensemble cast whose charisma drives the action as much as the plot does.

They may not look like much, but they're three of the best-realized characters in gamedom, and it's a pleasure getting to know them throughout the game.

Adding to the game's cinematic flair is a wonderful, exciting soundtrack composed by Greg Edmondson, who also did the music for "Firefly." Edmondson mixes sweeping, traditional-sounding strings and brass with tribal drums and unusual-sounding instruments, creating a thrilling and involving soundscape that underscores the action perfectly.

Lastly, helping tie together the feeling of watching a killer summer movie (I have a fair amount of affection for these) are the DVD-style extras. Throughout the game are hidden trinkets; finding these trinkets unlock a smattering of bonus features, from concept art of Nathan and the environments to several full-on making-of featurettes. Similar to DVD features, these bonus features helped expand my understanding about the game and added significantly to my appreciation of it; why more titles don't do this is a mystery to me.

You'll notice that I've spent four or five paragraphs enumerating the game's many presentational strengths and almost none talking about the gameplay. This is because the gameplay, while pretty fun, is not particularly memorable. As I mentioned before, the gunplay is a serviceable Gears of War imitation; Nathan takes cover behind objects, peaking out periodically to take shots enemies. The guns actually feel more powerful than GOW's tissue-paper-and-frozen-pea-shooting weapons, though it still takes a rather large number of bullets to take down enemies, considering you're mostly fighting shirtless Somali pirates.

You'll spend a good amount of time trading bullets with the local mercenary scum.

The platforming segments are pretty fluid, and work well for the most part, acting as a showcase for Uncharted's beautiful animation system; Nathan transitions in and out of climbing animations in a surprisingly lifelike and natural manner. However, there are many instances where Nathan will miss his jump because you either misjudged the jumping distance or jump at a piece of the background you mistake for a graspable ledge.

There are also several segments where Nathan and Elena hop on a jet-ski. These represent the nadir of the Uncharted experience; the gameplay isn't terrible, but they kill the pacing dead, and overall don't add anything to the game. One segment in particular involving exploding barrels and waterfalls caused me to contemplate shutting it off for the night in frustration, but I stuck with it, and it eventually ended; the best thing to be said about the jet-ski parts is that they're short and infrequent.

It's not that they're bad, it's that they're not as good as the rest. And they're slow and tedious. Whatev.

However, none of the gaffes and missteps affect the experience enough to tarnish what Naughty Dog has put together. With a wonderfully pulpy story, a strong cast of characters, and a polish akin to the best adventure movies, Uncharted is a well-executed combination of Indiana Jones thrills and next-gen gaming standbys. I cannot wait to play the sequel.