REVIEW: Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009)
Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
Rated: PG
Runtime: 105 minutes
Starring: Ben Stiller, Hank Azaria, Amy Adams.
My rating: 2 stars
Your Rating (Click stars to rate):
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I think it's time to turn the lights out on the Night at the Museum franchise. The latest incarnation, Battle of the Smithsonian, spends too much time trying to be funny, not enough time being funny, with an almost absent real plot despite a promising set up.
Apparently in the two years since security guard Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) saved the Museum of Natural History he became a successful inventor. He is proficient in all the new technologies and has lost touch with history. That looks like it's all going to change when exhibits at the MONH are being replaced with holograms and videos. He must come in and save them.
But that storyline falls by the wayside as Daley travels to the Smithsonian, where the old exhibits are stored, including the tablet that magically brings them all to life at sundown. Instead this movie becomes a mockery of history that is at times very funny, but on the whole just boring.
I felt like more than half this film was filler. It's as if writers Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon didn't have enough material to make a complete movie. What the audience gets is a series of asides as Larry interacts with other historical figures not in the first movie. Most of these conversations are not funny, somewhat offensive, and do nothing for the original plot set up.
I kept wondering what the actual people (Amelia Earhart, Albert Einstein, Jedediah Smith, Kakmunrah, etc...) would think if they watched this. I suspect they would all kill Ben Stiller. A part of me did, too. At least then there wouldn't be a possibility of another Night at the Museum.
The standout performances are few. Amy Adams as Amelia Earhart was cartoonish at best. It was a disappointment. Owen Wilson was as expected: not that funny, not that charming and somewhat stupid.
The only character that kept me laughing throughout was Kakmunrah (Hank Azaria). It's clear, too, that Azaria had fun with the ancient Egyptian pharaoh. Many scenes seemed to cut away just as Azaria smirks at his own joke. It was just another sign that this film was rushed.
I've gotten to the point where I can't take much of Stiller. He is perfect for cameos, but hasn't carried a full movie in years. Meet the Fckers was slow and forced, Tropic Thunder was a big bust in my book, and Night at the Museum didn't break ground. Stiller hasn't done anything praise worthy since There's Something About Mary. And wouldn't you know it, that's what started this whole Stiller machine.
He phones this performance in, never really developing the character past the first movie. That was the trend in all the holdovers characters from the first movie. They all just exist and go about life in the same way that was funny the first time, but now that we've seen it, doesn't illicit the same reactions.
There are some very funny moments, but not enough to really make this film memorable. I think that was one of the flaws of the first one, too. I sat waiting for this film to start, trying to remember how the last one ended. Really, I tried to remember anything about the first one. I remembered three things: Ben Stiller, Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams), and something about a tablet.
Ask me in two years what I remember about this one and I'll respond with: Abe Lincoln. Amelia Earhart and the uncredited Jonah Hill as a security guard. Nothing more and nothing less comes from Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. Two stars.
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Where it's playing:
Canton/PotsdamSHOWTIMES
Watertown SHOWTIMES
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