MOVIE +

Some movies will never get boring no matter how many times being watched. In my movie list, this one certainly finds the place. Especially, if you like listening to history, facts and moreover add some treasure maps, you really get riveted to the screen, scene after scene. I feel the success of the movie is in the casting. Its amazing that I felt more at home with the characters while watching the them in the sequel. Surely credit must go to the actors. Good job done. The pace of the movie never drags and that is the key for the success. Interestingly, the witty humor among the characters are quite nicely done.

The interesting scenes for me is when ben and his girl checks the resolute desk at Buckingham palace, at the oval office and of course the presidents kidnapping. That scene is very nicely done. The climatic hunt for the city of gold is definitely worth mentioning. Ed harris has neatly played down his character. A man of that nature would definitely behave like that in every scene. well done!!

Definitely watchable more than once :) :) :) :)

SUMMARY ::


On April 14, 1865, five days after the end of the Civil War, John Wilkes Booth and Michael O'Laughlen, both members of the Knights of the Golden Circle (KGC), enter a tavern and approach Thomas Gates (Ben Gates' great-great-grandfather), a well-known puzzle solver, to decode a coded message written in Booth's diary. Thomas recognizes the message as using the Playfair cipher and begins to translate it. While he does so, Booth leaves for Ford's Theatre to assassinate President Abraham Lincoln. Thomas solves the puzzle, a clue to a treasure map, and realizes the men are still loyal to the Confederate cause and have a sinister motive for finding the treasure. Unfortunately, he realizes this too late. O'Laughlen pulls a gun on him, threatening to shoot him if he does not hand over the diary, however he is distracted from Thomas when chaos erupts in the bar over news of Lincoln's assassination. Thomas rips several pages from the diary and throws them in the fireplace. The gunman shoots him and attempts to retrieve the pages, only succeeding in saving a fragment of a page. The dying Thomas gasps, "The war is over," but the man disagrees, stating, "You're wrong about that. The war has only just begun!" and rushes from the bar. As he lies dying, Thomas tells his distraught son, Charles Gates, "The debt that all men pay…"
Over 140 years later, Ben Gates (Nicholas Cage) is telling his great-great-grandfather's story at a conference on Civilian Heroes to great acclaim until black market dealer Mitch Wilkinson (Ed Harris) shows one of the 18 missing pages of John Wilkes Booth's diary, with Thomas Gates' name on it, convincing everyone that Thomas was not only a conspirator, but the grand architect of the Lincoln assassination. Ben sets out to prove the innocence of his great-great-grandfather.
Using spectral imaging, Ben discovers a cipher pointing to Édouard Laboulaye hidden on the back of the diary page. He travels to Paris, where he finds a cryptic clue engraved on the torch of the scale model of the Statue of Liberty on the Île des Cygnes, referring to the two Resolute desks.

Ben then heads to London, and seek out the closer of the two desks at the Buckingham Palace. With the help of his friend Riley Poole (Justin Bartha) and estranged girlfriend, Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger), he is able to sneak into the Queen's office to find an ancient wooden plank hidden in the desk. After Riley sets off the Fire Alarm, he is then pursued by Wilkinson, who, having broken into his father Patrick Gates' (Jon Voight) house, has cloned Patrick's cell phone in order to track Ben's whereabouts. Wilkinson eventually obtains the piece, but not before Ben manages to photograph the symbols carved into the plank by holding up the plank while running a red light. He then orders Riley to hack into the London police Database and get a copy of the picture from the traffic camera.
At Ben's insistence, Patrick reluctantly asks his ex-wife and Ben's mother, Dr. Emily Appleton (Helen Mirren), a professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, for help in translating the mysterious glyphs. She does so, but points out that some of the glyphs are partial, leading Ben to conclude another plank must be hidden in the other Resolute desk, which is located in the Oval Office. With the unknowing help of Abigail's new love interest, Connor (Ty Burrell), a curator for the White House, Ben and Abigail coax their way into the office to see the desk, where Ben discovers that the second plank is missing. However, he does find a stamp bearing the seal of the Book of Secrets. According to Riley, the Book of Secrets contains documents collected by Presidents for Presidents' eyes only, covering such controversial subjects as the JFK assassination, Watergate, and Area 51.
To find the location of the book, Ben manipulates the President's staff into moving his birthday party to Mount Vernon by booking all of the other approved locations. When Ben sneaks into the party, he convinces the President (Bruce Greenwood) to follow him into a secret tunnel under the House where he confronts him about the book; the President sympathetically warns Ben that his actions will be interpreted as an attempt to kidnap the President, confirming a conclusion Ben and his companions have already reached; Ben is now wanted for committing a federal offense. Appealing to the President's well-known love for history, Ben convinces the President to reveal the location of the book (which turns out to be in the Library of Congress). The President also tells him to read page 47 as well as the information he needs. In the book, Ben finds a picture of the missing plank from the desk and an entry by President Coolidge, who found it in 1924, had it destroyed, and commissioned Gutzon Borglum to carve Mount Rushmore to erase the map's landmarks in order to protect the treasure.
At Mount Rushmore, Ben, Riley, Abigail, and Patrick meet Mitch, who has kidnapped Ben's mother. Mitch provides a clue to the entrance of a cave containing the legendary native American city of gold, Cíbola. Once inside, they encounter several traps, and Ben, Riley, Abigail, and Mitch become separated from Ben's parents, who reconnect and kiss during one of the obstacles, all animosity seemingly forgotten. In the end, they all manage to find the city, made of solid gold, but rising flood waters force them to leave. In the last room before the exit, a final trap requires one person to stay behind while the others could leave, forcing one sacrifice in exchange for the safety of the group. A giant turntable wheel is fixed to an enormously heavy solid iron door, which, when opened, reveals a room into which the floodwater can drain out (this provides a strong current). It requires both Mitch and Ben to push the wheel that opens the gate. Mitch forces everyone to let him go first by threatening to kill Abigail with a knife, and a terrified Ben agrees to stay behind instead of telling Mitch that his plan wouldn't work. However, rising water forces Mitch to be the last person left, with Ben at the iron door, with the other members already on the other side. Ben tries to help him out, but Mitch cannot come to Ben without the door closing. Mitch decides to sacrifice himself, declaring, "It's not a puzzle! No more puzzles, Ben!", and allows Ben to escape the flooding cavern, but not before Ben agrees to give him credit for finding the treasure. Ben clears his family's name with the discovery and is cleared of all charges when the President tells everyone that Ben saved his life after the door to the tunnel closed "accidentally". Ben also ensures Mitch receives joint credit for the find. The President then asks Ben about what he read on page 47 of the Book of Secrets, to which Ben replies, "It's life altering, sir."
Several days later, a team of archaeologists, historians, and scientists begin exploring and excavating Cibola, along with Mr. Gates and Ms. Appleton, who appear to be much closer and almost like a couple again. Later on, at a celebration for the Gates family for the discovery of the lost city of gold at Mount Rushmore, Abigail asks Ben if he would like to move back in to their house with her, although he (at first) bluntly refuses because of her habit of using the word "so". He manages to convince him otherwise and they share a passionate kiss. To his extreme shock, Riley finally gets the recognition of being a treasure hunter in his own right by an attractive girl who also asks for an autograph, along with his Ferrari 430 Spyder.


TRAILER ::