Freeze and recognize!
Larry Daley has returned for another adventure. This time, he’s a successful businessman that has helped to develop the perfect flashlight. Rich, powerful and always on the go, Larry is happy…. for the most part. Something in his life is missing and that something are his friends at the museum he used to watch at nights. When Larry goes to visit the museum he soon finds that all his friends are moving away and getting replaced by electronic art displays. Almost accepting the fate of his friends, he gets a distress call from Jedediah Smith about an attack from an Egyptian ruler. Larry quickly finds himself heading to the Smithsonian trying to save his group of friends from an almost unspeakable fate. With the help of some new friends, such as Amelia Earhart, he may just live to see another day.
Essentially, this is the same movie as the first. I know there are some new faces, such as Amy Adams’ Amelia Earhart, but it’s the same type of plot. The gimmick of the film is that these historical figures come to life and cause mischief (that was the story in the first film). This time around, the talented Hank Azaria plays the antagonist Kahmunrah (Egyptian fellow), who wants the magical tablet back that brings everyone in the museum to life. While there is a certain branch off with Azaria’s character, most of the film’s entertainment is through comedy and through statues and portraits coming to life; that’s most of the first movie in a nutshell. Not to say that this movie is awful, it’s just not really different from the first. Despite Azaria’s best efforts to make this film about his character, the movie never turns the corner of entertainment. It’s literally just one-liner jokes and neat gimmicks.
Other problems with the film include a huge unspoken gap of backstory that doesn’t get covered about Larry’s life. You never fully understand how he gets away from the Museum and into the gig at the beginning. There’s never a real explanation about unhappiness or riches or whatever. For a guy who gets to work at a museum that comes to life that has to be more unique than making glow-in-the-dark flashlights. It’s as if the filmmakers reset their character’s life so that he would fit into the story. You should never alter the lives of good characters and take them out of a unique element; this is what killed Gremlins 2 (outside of terrible direction and script).
Is this movie good for younger folks? I think it provides some solid entertainment for kids. My kids found it was hilarious, despite its many flaws. Of course, a kid’s perspective on a film is generally not as harsh and cynical as a reviewer’s, which says a lot. Kids will find the cheap monkey comedy funny, as well as the Thinker and Abe Lincoln. This movie was made for a younger audience, despite the brief kissing scene between Earhart and Daley. So, it might be worth a good rental when it comes to needing something to appease the younger crew in your household.
As for this cynical reviewer, I found Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian to be a little shallow in entertainment. Too many gimmicks, too much of the same thing from the first. Simply put the movie has moments, but they aren’t solid.
Shifting gears a bit, the blu-ray portion of this movie is really impressive. The visuals on the blu-ray are pretty sharp, despite some dreary lighting in the film here and there. The colorful characters and the cool black and white gangsters really stand out on this format. This is probably one of the better looking blu-rays coming from 20th Century Fox this holiday season. I really do like the audio as well, as the action (and music) sound very enhanced. The remastering in DTS-HD probably helped that out quite a bit.
As for the features, it’s always telling when a non-Disney film is packed with features. What does it tell you ask? It says a lot about who the audience is and what they were shooting for. Clearly, after you see the features below, the audience the movie was aiming for were of the younger persuasion. Let me give you a list of goodies:
– Gag Reel
– 12 Deleted Scenes/Alternate Ending
– Curators of Comedy: Behind the Scenes with Ben Stiller
– Museum Scavenger Hunt Game
– Phinding Pharaoh with Hank Azaria
– Cherub Bootcamp
– Historical Confessions: Famous Last Words
– Museum Magic: Entering the World of the Photograph
– Cavemen Conversations: Survival of the Wittiest
– Audio Commentary
– Monkey Mischief
– DVD copy of the movie
– Digital copy of the movie
– Secret Doors and Scientists
– Gangster Levy
– Director 201 with Shawn Levy
There is a lot here, but you can see that it’s very much geared towards a younger audience. Sure they won’t be hitting up the commentary or possibly going into the Fox Movie Channel Featurettes, but Monkey Mischief and the Cavemen Conversations will keep them occupied. All in all, the features are very solid and actually are slightly more entertaining than the film. There are portions of the features where you get the filmmakers intentions on the movie; that helps a bit when watching it.