Friday, May 22, 2009
Movie review: Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
When a film not named The Passion of the Christ or Titanic makes more than $250 million at the box office, it's virtually guaranteed to have a sequel. That goes double for Ben Stiller, no stranger to cash cows/sequels, having starred in the Madagascar animated films and Meet the Parents/Fockers. And so comes Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, Ben Stiller's latest attempt to bilk families out of their hard-earned money.
Forgive the cynicism, but when so little effort is put into telling a coherent story, it's pretty easy to tell that the film exists solely to sell Happy Meal toys.After coming to the rescue in the first film, Larry Daley (Stiller) has inexplicably graduated from his job as a night guard at the Museum of Natural History in New York to become an infomercial guru, selling oddities like glow-in-the-dark flashlights (okay, that's not a half-bad idea).
But Larry still holds an affection for the museum, even dropping by unannounced to take a shift as a night guard. It seems that the museum is going high tech, shipping the majority of its exhibits (yes, including worthless figurines like Jedediah [Owen Wilson] and Octavius [Steve Coogan]) to the Smithsonian archives. When Larry gets a phone call from Jedediah (yes, the figurine not only knows how to use a phone, but somehow got Larry's number) telling him that he and the others from the museum are under attack, Larry springs into action and jets to Washington D.C.
As you can tell, NATM: BOTS requires more than a little “Just go with it” type of thinking. If you didn't, then you'd constantly be wondering such things as, oh, how Larry is able to so easily access the bowels of the Smithsonian; how, despite the Smithsonian consisting of 19 different museums, there seems to be not a single night guard on duty to notice things like every single exhibit, painting, and figure coming to life; or how, upon joining forces with Amelia Earhart (Amy Adams), she and Larry are able to abscond with the Wright Flyer and not only maneuver it like a jet fighter but fly it approximately 1,400 times farther than the Wright Brothers ever did.
It's a kids' movie, you say? I'd argue that “kids' movie” and “plot without holes you can walk a T-Rex skeleton through” aren't mutually exclusive ideas. I'd also argue that the multitude of references (including classic artwork like “The Thinker” [not one of which is at the Smithsonian, by the way] and “American Gothic”) deserve a bit more than just to serve as props for slightly-clever jokes. But the kids are served well by such things as not one but two cute monkeys, and the Jonas Brothers appearing as three marble cherubs come to life.
Despite all this, the comedic talent assembled for the film does come close to making it worthwhile. Adams is a delight as Earhart, proving yet again that she's a force to be reckoned with. Hank Azaria pulls triple duty, most notably as bad guy Kahmunrah, who causes all the havoc (Azaria also voices The Thinker and Abraham Lincoln). Bill Hader from Saturday Night Live has a small but effective role as General George Custer.
But even they are not enough to save the film. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, with its never-ending supply of special effects but scant story, is all beauty and no brains.
