Starts out well but just turns stupid/boring

Rating: 5/10 (4 May 2014)

Gates family history is Patrick Gates (Jon Voight)'s grandfather Charles' recollection of the night of Lincoln's assassination. Charles's father Thomas was given a book to decipher. It turned out to be Booth's diary and the man was actually a member of Knights of the Golden Circle. KGC were confederate saboteurs working in the north. The diary had a clue to a treasure that the confederates want. Thomas threw the pages into the fire and was killed for it. The confederate spy was able to retrieve a part of a page. Thomas Gates was always a hero in the story until now when Mitch Wilkinson (Ed Harris) shows up with the missing page. Mitch is a antiquities soldier of fortune and wants the treasure. His ancestor was a confederate general. The missing page has Thomas Gates' name along with the other conspirators. Everybody now believes that Thomas was a Booth co-conspirator and Ben (Nicolas Cage) has to clear his family name with the help of Riley Poole (Justin Bartha), ex-girlfriend Abigail Chase (Diane Kruger), and even his mother Emily Appleton (Helen Mirren) who can't stand his father.
The gang is reunited. The bickering couple chemistry is funny and good. The group has a lot of fun. The movie seems to be trying very hard to be cutesy fun. The addition of Helen Mirren added surprisingly little. Ed Harris is a little too scary and mean. He seems capable of killing anyone. They travel around the world in a wild chase for treasure. It's one big monument after another. It just turns very repetitive as they find clues in a series of over-the-top capers. About halfway into the movie, it gets way too ridiculous even for a National Treasure movie. I could still let this movie get a pass, but the final crazy City of Gold really sank this one. When they got on the ridiculous tippy top table, I couldn't wait for this to end.