Nicolas Cage is back to reveal more secrets from the American history and to clear his family name in the sequel “National treasure: Book of Secrets.”

The movie has everything you want from a holiday action movie, PG-rated, from history lessons to car chase on the London streets, to trips to Paris, London and back to America.

We are all familiar with the characters from the first “National Treasure” if you’ve seen it, of course.

We have archeologist hero, Ben Franklin Gates (Nicolas Cage), joined by his father, Patrick Gates (the outstanding Jon Voight), Ben’s techno wisecracker friend, Riley Poole (Justin Bartha), who manages to untangle Ben from apparently no-way out situations. Also running along is now ex-girlfriend of Ben, Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger).

Joining them will be Ben’s mom and Patrick’ ex-wife, Emily Appleton (Helen Mirren), a professor of ancient languages, who helps her son translate some pre-Columbian hieroglyphs.

The rival, because there has to be one, is an archeologist, Mitch Wilkinson (Ed Harris), a pro-confederate northerner whose ancestors tried to find the golden city of Cibola in order to continue the war.

He will unveil at an academic conference that Gate’s ancestor, Thomas Gates, collaborated with John Wilkes Booth at Abraham Lincoln’s assassination.

The first scenes of the movie show the end of the Civil War and the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in the theatre. They will probably succeed more in alluring you into the story than the first movie did.

Ben has a difficult mission to accomplish now: to clear his family name.

Apparently his great-grandfather, Thomas Gates, a Civil War hero who burned a page from Booth’s diary to stop the Confederacy get their hands on gold, actually took part in the scheme. The actual fact is that he was pressured by Booth and another conspirator to translate the diary page that revealed the location of ancient city of gold, Cibola, just on the same night Lincoln was murdered by Booth.

Ben and the rest of the team now have to find the city of Cibola, which is known to be a fable, to prove that Thomas Gates was indeed a Civil War hero.

In order to find Cibola they have to get their hands on map, which off course, is dispersed in fragments, one hidden in a book that holds all the secrets of American history handed from president to president.

The “Book of Secrets”, (because yes, that is what is called the book that has all the American secrets), holds secrets like J.F.K.’s assassination and Area 51. Ben plans to kidnap the current U.S. president (Bruce Greenwood) to get the book and from here you can imagine the rest.

Just like the first “National Treasure” this sequel is filled with historical facts, accurate by the way, entangled with explosions, car chase and witty characters.

One could say that the movie is a fantastic one, as it has no conventional time frame and is trying to rewrite the history.

But if you liked the first one, this will probably meet your expectations. It’s good to have an action movie for holidays that doesn’t imply swearing or killing, but at the same time has the ingredients of a real action movie.

You can see that is a movie for the whole family to enjoy, and, why not, learn a thing or two.

The movie is produced by big Hollywood producer Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Jon Turteltaub, who also directed the first “National Treasure.”

Directed By: Jon Turteltaub

Cast: Nicolas Cage, Jon Voight, Harvey Keitel, Ed Harris, Diane Kruger, Justin Bartha, Bruce Greenwood, and Helen Mirren

Release date: December 21, 2007