National Treasure: Book of Secrets

Jon Turteltaub’s sequel follows Ben Gates after his ancestor turns up in John Wilkes Booth’s diary. It repeats the first film’s shape: a document points to a landmark, the landmark to the next riddle. What changes is the escalation, because the final clue requires kidnapping the sitting President. The Library of Congress Main Reading Room was shot where it stands and holds the screen for roughly ten minutes, while the White House and Oval Office were rebuilt on a stage and the Buckingham Palace interiors were filmed at Lancaster House in London. The Library’s communications director, Matt Raymond, said roaming the closed stacks that freely would never happen, and the job title given to Abigail is a post the institution lacks. The Hall of Records at Mount Rushmore, though, is real. Gutzon Borglum began cutting it in 1938, Congress confined the work to the faces, and in 1998 a sealed repository went into its floor, closed to the public. The film fits that cavity with a door to a golden city. The sequel outgrossed the original worldwide, yet no third film followed, and a series without Cage arrived in 2022. A good fit if you accept kidnapping a President as this film’s high point. Not for anyone who will snag on a twin Resolute desk standing in Buckingham Palace.