Tuesday, August 19, 2008

National Treasure 1 and 2

National Treasure 1: Nicholas Cage stars as Ben Franklin Gates, an archaeologist and adventurer looking for the legendary lost treasure of the Templar Knights, spurred on by the stories he was told as a young man by his grandfather, John Adams Gates, twenty years before. John tells Ben the secret hiding place for the treasure is encoded on the back of the Declaration of Independence, placed there by none other than the founders of the United States of America, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin.

Ben's father, Patrick Henry Gates, is more than well aware that treasure hunting has been the curse of the Gates family, and has soured on the entire idea. With the help of his best friend and partner in crime, a sarcastic, thrill seeking computer expert named Riley Poole (Justin Bartha), Riley and his team careen from one grave predicament to another. As an adult, Ben is contacted by Ian Howe (Sean Bean), a rich British adventurer who also dreams of finding the lost treasure.

When Ben learns Howe's intentions for the treasure are less than the best, Ben comes into contact with Dr. Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger), a pretty and young researcher involved in the preservation and display of the Declaration of Independence. At first, Abigail is skeptical of Ben and his wild stories. But when Howe and his henchmen break into the National Archives, Abigail starts to believe. Taking the Declaration to Ben, Abigail becomes a partner in this crazy scheme, as they try to outwit Howe, as well as a team of FBI Special Agents, lead by Agent Sadusky, charged with getting the Declaration back.

National Treasure 2: For Ben Gates (Nicolas Cage), history isn't just a dry record of what's occurred in a distant and half-forgotten past... for him, history is alive, vital, and occasionally it offers the possibility of finding extraordinary treasures. After his astonishing discovery of the riches of the Templar Knights, Ben has become the world's most famous treasure hunter... although he prefers the term "treasure protector."

Ben and his father, university professor Patrick Gates (Jon Voight), are shaken by the discovery of one of the long-lost pages from the diary of Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth. The diary was found on Booth's body when he was killed; however, several pages had been torn from the diary and have never been found... until now. Surprisingly, the information on this page seems to implicate their ancestor Thomas Gates as a co-conspirator in the assassination of President Lincoln.

Ben must work with his now ex-girlfriend, American history archivist Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger), and his tech-wiz partner, Riley Poole (Justin Bartha), in a globe-trotting adventure which dangerously criss-crosses the inner sanctums of Washington, D.C., Paris, London and the American heartland.

As Ben, Patrick, Abigail and Riley meticulously unravel clues which threaten to turn history, and their lives, completely upside down, their search for historical truth widens into a hunt for perhaps the most mysterious and highly guarded book on earth and, from that, to a famed mythological treasure. Much to Patrick's consternation, Ben calls upon a secret weapon -- his formidable mother and Patrick's ex-wife, linguistics professor Emily Appleton (Helen Mirren), who hasn't spoken to Patrick in 32 years. She is soon caught up in the intrigue, but the team is not alone in its pursuit. The man who brought the lost page to Ben's attention, Mitch Wilkinson (Ed Harris), has his own family history to uncover. But his ambitions are less noble than merely discovering treasure, putting him on a deadly collision course with the others in a desperate effort to uncover the secrets that lie beneath the half-burnt diary page from America's past.

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