Corrected entry: When they are in the room that is filling with water, Mitch says that he will go first and if anyone else does, they will stop and go through it all again. However, in the next shot he is holding the door open while everyone else goes through.
Corrected entry: Nicolas Cage and his friends were viewing a digital photo of their speeding offence pretty much immediately when they had access to a laptop. This is only possible when the image is sent from the camera through transmission. UK speed cameras use old photo reels to prevent fraudlant offences, so there is absolutely no way for them to see the photo.
Correction: Digital speed cameras have been in use in UK since at least 2005. Otherwise the Average Speed restrictions would be difficult to enforce.
Corrected entry: Gates' ending remarks at the conference referencing the South not only being able to continue the war, but win it with a new financial source, is complete bushwa. Once Lee had surrendered, his men were more than happy to go home to their families. What would the rebels do, buy mercenaries?
Corrected entry: In the movie, it says the famous Spanish explorer, Cabaza de Vaca shipwrecked near Florida. This is false because Cabaza de Vaca's ship actually crashed near Galveston, Texas.
Correction: Cabeza de Vaca actually landed in Florida first. He and his crew were at constant odds with the local Native Americans. They built crude rafts in an effort to escape and then shipwrecked near Galveston.
Corrected entry: After the visit to the Oval Office, Riley claims that the information about the "Secret Book" was released in 1966 under the "Freedom Of Information" Act. While it's true Johnson signed the act in 1966, it did not go into effect until the following year.
Correction: Character mistake. Even though he appears to know a lot about the subject, it's possible for someone to forget the exact year it all went down.
Corrected entry: In the scene where the cast discovers the underground cave and goes to turn the wheel to stop the water from pouring in, in one shot Ben is holding the flare, then shortly after in another shot, Riley is holding the flare, and shortly after that, the flare is gone completely.
Correction: Ben hands the flare to Riley before he is seen turning the wheel. The flare was likely extinguished by the water, or burned out and Riley discarded it. No sense hanging on to a burned out flare.
Corrected entry: In the later part of the chase scene after Buckingham Palace, check out the front passenger-side tire of the SUV Mitch is riding in. Right around the time that the cars are on the bridge, you can see in some frames that sparks are flying from it as if the rim is dragging on the ground. Other times there are no sparks at all. This switches back and forth several times during the chase.
Correction: The SUV is driving on the rim, as the tire is flat during all of the scenes on the bridge. The reason you sometimes see sparks, and sometimes not, is that sometimes the bare rim is on pavement, other times, when the wheel is turned the other direction, it is sliding on the rubber that is still on the rim. The tire is completely flat, but has not yet shredded completely off the rim. The behaviour of the vehicle and sparking is consistent with a flat tire of that magnitude.
Corrected entry: When Ben Gates takes the photo of the plank of wood in the President's book, the photo has been taken and stored on his phone previously, as at the bottom of the phone, it says 'View' and 'Options' rather than 'Capture'.
Correction: My phone says "options" and "exit" when in camera mode. The photo is taken by pressing the menu button and then says "options" and "back". At no stage does it say "capture"
Corrected entry: The inscription on the Statue of Liberty in Paris was not hidden, and easily obtainable with an internet search or a few minutes of research in a library. There was no need to use the remote control helicopter and camera.
Correction: Even if there was no need, the characters were still free to choose this way of finding the inscription. Maybe they (as the scientists they are) felt that no sources could be trusted other than first-hand information?
Corrected entry: The President's book said that Borglum had been asked to cover the clues at the Black Hills - which lead to Mount Rushmore. But the sign in the Black Hills - the bird - had not been covered. Had Borglum cut the wrong rock - or what?
Correction: It had been "covered" to the extent that a) the rock had to be wet to reveal the picture, and b) you had to know what it meant. Borglum had simply decided that people would be less than likely to venture into the hills while it was raining, and if they did, and saw the bird, no-one would know that it was a secret entrance to a treasure trove.
Corrected entry: In the scene of the city, Justin Bartha picks up a large gold brick with one hand that in real life would be extremely heavy.
Correction: When he picks it up, he acts as if it is heavy. Also pure gold is extremely soft and would not be able to be formed into nice sharp edged bricks. That is why gold is sold as 14K 18K. That brick probably had lots of impurities in it.
Corrected entry: In the scene where the four are on the balancing platform in the cave, Mitch jumps to the ladder, you can see a silver gun tucked into his pants on his back. In the next shot, it is missing, but never mentioned.
Correction: I think that is part of his gun holster. If he had a gun with him, why would he need to take that large dagger from the skeleton, that he eventually uses on Abigail.
You forget that in an earlier scene Ben tells Mitch to leave his men and gun behind on the path before they go further. So he may have an empty holster.
Corrected entry: In the scene where the cast exits the tunnel at the end of the movie, just after when Mitch dies, they cut to a shot of FBI Agent Sadusky receiving a call from Ben telling him that they found Cibola. But Ben has been underwater the whole time, yet his phone works fine?
Correction: I went swimming once and i had my cell phone in my pocket and it still works ok.
Corrected entry: In the scene where Riley and Abigail are driving from the Library of Congress while Ben is chasing after the SUV to jump in, in one shot he is in the back of the SUV hanging out, and shortly later in another shot, he is completely in the SUV, and the rear door has somehow closed.
Correction: I am sure the door was automatically closed by Abigail. A lot of those high end SUV's like that have the remote open and close rear hatches.
Corrected entry: In the first National Treasure, "Philadelphia, PA" pops up at the bottom of the screen when Ben, Riley, and Abigail arrive at Patrick Gates' house for the first time. In National Treasure: Book of Secrets, when they arrive at that same house to see Patrick, "Washington D.C." pops up instead of his original home, Philadelphia.
Correction: The house used in this film is smaller (Ben's father complains about lack of space), and the driveway and the interior is completely different from the house used in the first movie. Therefore it is given with the "Washington D.C." pop up that he has moved to another house.
Corrected entry: Near the end, inside the treasure chamber before the water rushes back in, Dr. Appleton is standing next to the sacrificial platform and runs her finger through a series of Olmec characters and says, "This will give an incredible insight of pre-Columbian history." Among those sets of characters showing, only the first two are heliograph characters. The next two sets of 3 each are all ancient Chinese Seal Script characters.
Correction: The messages are in Chinese because it's like the Rosetta Stone, saying something in one language and then saying the exact same thing in a different language.
Corrected entry: In the water wheel scene toward the end of the movie, Cage says they must go down because the chamber would be filled with water if there was no place for the water to drain. They stop the flow of water using the first water wheel and enter into the chamber containing the City of Gold. When the water breaks through the walls of the first chamber, it begins filling the lower chamber because the final escape door is closed. The only way to open this door is for someone to turn the second water wheel and hold the door open. Thus, with no place for water to drain out of the City of Gold chamber (other than for someone to hold the second water wheel in place), both the lower and the upper chamber would fill with water.
Correction: Not sure where the mistake is here. The wall to the first chamber bursts, probably due to water pressure, in which case the water wheel doesn't do anything to regulate the water. If the walls held, the second chamber would fill both chambers up, so no mistake there. Either way, the group would drown if not able to leave the flooded chambers via the water wheel's opening.
Corrected entry: UK speed cameras don't catch oncoming traffic so there's no way Nicolas Cage could have used the camera to make a copy of the dialog.
Correction: I pass a speed camera on my way into work that catches both sides of the road, so one side of the road is being captured as oncoming.
Correction: There are several different types of speed cameras in use in the UK. Truvelo cameras face the oncoming traffic.
Correction: Was it a speed camera or was it for the traffic lights - hadn't they gone through on a red light? So catching evidence of people going through the lights on red would be for incoming vehicles.
Correction: Realizing he can't get out (there's no way for him to get any of the others back to hold the wheel for him) Mitch has a change of heart at the end and chooses to save them.