Night at the Museum 2

Night at the Museum 2 - 2009

** Out of ****

At the very least, the follow up to the comedy hit Night at the Museum could have directly copied its predecessor and still made the green. But in attempting to one-up itself, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian directly copies its predecessor in spirit, while simultaneously being even worse in practise than the already obnoxious original.

I have quite literally never seen a film flaunt its budget so shamelessly. Museum 2 slides from unnecessary effects sequence to unnecessary effects sequence, many of which aren’t even that impressive. Add in about fifty too many characters, a dull lead, tedious pacing and stale humour and you have an experience that strangely I cannot call outwardly bad for some reason but is simply banal and monotonous in the worst way. Even the central players, Ben Stiller as Larry Daley and Amy Adams as Amelia Earhart, can’t have more than 20 minutes of screen time each. It is as if the filmmakers went to the Smithsonian wrote down every single display and said "alright, lets fit these all into the movie". The whole film feels like it was sponsored by the Smithsonian and that flaw infused with the inflated budget leads to an endlessly fragmented endeavour like it was simply the aforementioned exec reading off the list of exhibits for the entire running time.

The plot is actually non-existent. The tablet of Ahmunrah from the original has been shipped to the Smithsonian along with all his faux friends from the Museum of Natural History in NYC, where Daley has moved on from to become an inventor. After finding out the news he then rushes to Washington to save them. But a struggle erupts between the bad and good displays as they come to life during the night. End plot and let the battle begin. All I can say is thank god that Hank Azaria is in this film (he plays the evil Egyptian conqueror Kahmunrah) because is he was absent this would have been utterly, utterly disastrous (more so than it already is). I believe I laughed exactly four times (in addition to Azaria’s scenes), once at a fairly inspired 300 reference, at a cameo from Jonah Hill, a sequence with some bobble-head Einstein’s and a few gags with Larry and his flashlight. That is about a laugh every half hour in a film that was already far too long.

At the very least when you have a movie like this there is a chance for redemption with a strong lead, which Stiller does not supply. He is doing it for a paycheque and boy does it show. Adams as Earhart is fine (but actually a tad slutty) and the budget also seems to also have covered cheques for about every single comedian working in Hollywood from stars of The Office, to Bill Hader, Ricky Gervais, Steve Coogan, Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, et al. Cameos, famous exhibits, effects, and the 'story' all combine into nothing; a tedious, soulless and uninspired film that somehow manages to squander the cast effortlessly. The only battle I will ever admit to being associated with was the battle to stay awake.