Directed by:
Jon TurteltaubComposer:
Trevor RabinCast:
Nicolas Cage, Justin Bartha, Diane Kruger, Jon Voight, Helen Mirren, Ed Harris, Harvey Keitel, Bruce Greenwood, Ty Burrell, Alicia Coppola, Joel Gretsch (more)VOD (4)
Plots(1)
Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage) sets out to find the lost 18 pages from the diary of Abraham Lincoln's assassin, John Wilkes Booth. One of the 18 missing pages has been discovered by Jeb Wilkinson (Ed Harris). On that page are the names of the Lincoln assassination conspirators. Thomas Gates, Ben Gates' great-great-grandfather, is listed on the page. After discovering this, Ben does not want Thomas Gates to be remembered "as a conspirator in the assassination of the man who brought this nation together." His quest to clear his family's name leads to unexpected twists and turns. Agent Sadusky (Harvey Keitel) tells Ben that a secret book has the information he needs. The president's "book of secrets" holds documents, for presidents' eyes only, of all the nations secrets; from the truth behind the JFK conspiracy, the missing minutes from the Watergate tapes, and Area 51. When Ben's request to see the book is denied, he says he must kidnap the president. Each clue leads him closer "to a discovery that the world isn't ready to believe." (official distributor synopsis)
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Reviews (9)
Even though chatty like Fidel Castro at a convention, it moves along quickly enough that you don't even have time to think about the tons of historical and scripted bullshit, and that’s not really the point. It's just as stupid and only slightly funnier than any episode of the Relic Hunter series, with the difference that Tia Carrera is replaced by A-list actors and that Jerry Bruckheimer dug deep in his pocket again. Nicolas Cage's lightning-fast deductions would make Sherlock Holmes pale with envy if he wasn’t facepalming.
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A repeated joke is no longer funny, or leave this treasure alone already! It's true that it's a cute Hollywood, star-studded mystery adventure that fortunately doesn't take itself too seriously and works more than satisfactorily as unpretentious visual entertainment despite its excessive runtime, but there's not a single reason to grant its limited filmmaking qualities with a fourth star and thus make it a work worthy of recommendation and praise in my books... Harmless and inoffensive, but still a barely ambitious average. ;) 60%
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Talky, predictable, boring. I don't remember a single minute of the first part, and the second part turns out exactly the same. Nicolas Cage's puzzle-solving skills belong in the Guinness Book of Records. Quite embarrassing considering that this “intelligent” entertainment is aimed at the widest audience possible so that at least some money can be made from this boring, yet expensive-looking story. The most entertaining scene is the one with the president. I highly recommend it to all intellectuals and cynics. There would be plenty of waste, like mushrooms after rain.
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The Jon Turteltaub crew, led by the radiant Nicolas Cage, bumps up the pace compared to the already solid first installment, rushing towards another treasure and this time even justice. Despite occasional slip-ups in logic, everything happens at such a killer tempo that I couldn't catch my breath. I want to believe that despite years of delay, the Gates family will make it to a third installment.
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It's basically the same quality as the first film. You will get exactly what you expect from this. A glimpse into the past, when mysteries were created, which are now being uncovered by Nicolas Cage. It's action-packed, fairly well-thought-out, and enjoyable. I have nothing against these movies that aim to entertain and nothing else. Sometimes we need to unwind, and I'm glad I could switch off for two hours with this film.
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