Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
National Treasure: Book of Secrets is a 2007 American action-adventure film directed by Jon Turteltaub and produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. It is a sequel to the 2004 film National Treasure and is the second film of the National Treasure franchise. The film stars Nicolas Cage in the lead role, Jon Voight, Harvey Keitel, Ed Harris, Diane Kruger, Justin Bartha, Bruce Greenwood and Helen Mirren.
The film premiered in New York City on December 13, 2007, and Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures released it in North America on December 21. Like its predecessor, it received mixed reviews from critics but was a commercial success, grossing $459.2 million worldwide, becoming the ninth-highest-grossing film of 2007.
PLOT
Five days after the end of the American Civil War, John Wilkes Booth and Michael O’Laughlen, both members of the KGC, approach Thomas Gates to decode a message copied into Booth’s diary. Thomas recognizes the message as a Playfair cipher, and translates it while Booth departs for Ford’s Theatre to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln. Thomas solves the puzzle, but realizes Booth and O’Laughlen are trying to help the Confederacy, and rips the cipher’s pages from the diary to burn them. O’Laughlen shoots Thomas and flees with the one surviving page fragment, and a dying Thomas tells his son Charles the keyword for the cipher.
In the present day, famed treasure hunter Ben Gates tells Thomas’ story at a Civilian Heroes conference. Black market dealer Mitch Wilkinson produces the page fragment, with Thomas Gates’ name next to those of Mary Surratt and Dr. Samuel Mudd. The public believes Thomas helped kill Lincoln, and Ben and his father Patrick set out to disprove it. Using spectral imaging, Ben discovers traces of the cipher on the diary page, that, when solved using the keyword “DEATH” that led to Edouard Rene de Laboulaye points to the smaller Statue of Liberty in Paris. Traveling there, Ben and his friend Riley Poole discover an engraving referencing the Resolute desks. They head to London, reluctantly recruiting Ben’s estranged girlfriend, Dr. Abigail Chase, along the way. Ben and Abigail sneak inside, peek at the Buckingham Palace desk, and obtain a Pre-Columbian carved plank from a secret drawer. Mitch, who had secretly cloned Patrick’s cell phone to track Ben’s whereabouts, pursues the trio and eventually obtains the wooden plank, but not before Ben manages to photograph it.
Back in America, Patrick reluctantly asks his ex-wife, archaeo–lexicologist Dr. Emily Appleton, for help. She claims the carvings reference the “center of the Earth”, but points out that some glyphs are partial. Ben and Abigail convince Abigail’s new boyfriend, Connor, a White House Curator, to let them see the Resolute desk in the Oval Office. Ben discovers that the second plank has been replaced by a stamp of an altered Presidential seal, which Riley identifies as the symbol for a secret shared diary written by US Presidents containing national secrets. Ben’s FBI friend, Agent Peter Sadusky, confirms the book’s existence but warns that no one can read its contents without consent from the sitting President.
Ben manipulates the President’s birthday party to be hosted at Mount Vernon to convince the President to explore a secret tunnel with him. There, Ben activates a secret sliding door, separates the President from the US Secret Service, and asks him about the book while safely leading the President to freedom at the end of the tunnel. The President sympathetically warns Ben that his actions, while innocently meant, will be interpreted as an attempted kidnapping, and unless he achieves his goal of finding the treasure, he will be arrested for his actions. He then reveals that the book is hidden in a safe compartment at the Library of Congress. Pursued by the FBI, Ben, Abigail, and Riley manage a brief look at the book. They find a photograph of the missing plank and an entry by Calvin Coolidge. He found the plank in 1924, translated it, had it destroyed, and commissioned Gutzon Borglum to carve Mount Rushmore, to hide evidence of a hidden treasure nearby.
After consulting Emily about the glyphs, Ben, Riley, Abigail, and Patrick head to Mount Rushmore. Mitch has already acquired, memorized, and burns the final clue; Queen Victoria’s secret letter to the Confederacy. He kidnaps Emily and forces the group to bring him along. He helps the group find the entrance of a cave full of booby traps. After briefly getting separated, the group finds a pit containing Cíbola, a Native American city of gold. Shortly after, Cibola’s ancient sluice gates ruptures, and it becomes clear one of the group must sacrifice themselves in the quickly flooding cave to hold open the door for the others. Mitch initially forces Ben to do so, but has a heart and takes over when Ben is knocked away, and he asks Ben to give him posthumous credit for finding the treasure.
Ben and the rest return to the surface, where the President prevents Ben from being arrested by claiming Ben saved him from the tunnel’s accidental closing. Ben ensures that Mitch receives joint credit for the discovery and clears Thomas Gates’ name by proving that Booth had consulted him about the treasure, not the assassination. Emily and Patrick lead an expedition of Cíbola while Ben rekindles his relationship with Abigail. Riley gets his Ferrari back from the president.
