Movie Review: Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (2009)

The kids may enjoy it, but the laughs are limited

The best way to describe Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian is to say it is harmless, but that doesn't necessarily make it good. Besides a couple of chuckles, this flick never inspires much laughter outside of a moment when Ben Stiller as Larry Daley kisses the reanimated version of Amelia Earhart and a youngster in my audience yelled out, "Ewwwwww!" Pretty rough when a 7-year-old (guessing) in the audience supplies the film's largest laugh.

I never saw the 2006 original film, but from what I have heard it isn't half bad despite the majority of negative reviews it received on its way to an impressive $250+ million domestic box-office haul. Negative reviews be damned! Money talks and Stiller is back as Larry Daley, a graveyard-shift night watchman at the Museum of Natural History in the first film, who has moved on to form his own company selling "As Seen On TV" inventions to much success. However, money can't seem to replace his desire to be back in the company of the reanimated exhibits at the museum.

Battle of the Smithsonian follows a select group of the exhibits, such as Jedediah Smith played by Owen Wilson, from the first film as they are boxed up for storage and shipped off to the National Archives at the Smithsonian. The catch is they will be going there without the magic tablet that brings them to life, but the monkey steals it and once they get to the Smithsonian all hell breaks loose as the 3,000 year-old Pharaoh Kah Mun Rah (Hank Azaria) comes to life and claims ownership of the tablet and his intent to rule the world by unleashing an army of birdmen. In the process he locks Larry's buddies up, but not before Jedediah gets a phone call in to Larry informing him of the situation.

The film follows the process of Larry impersonating his way into the Smithsonian and saving his friends. On the way he has a mini romance with Amelia Earhart (Amy Adams), talks to bobble-head Einsteins (Eugene Levy) and destroys a giant stained glass window along with damn near everything else. Of course, when exhibits impersonating historical figures come to life and start impersonating those figures and some of them use an inexplicable lisp I think we can pretty much throw logic and reason out the window.

So, we are left with entertainment value and whether or not this film brings any. As I pointed out early on, no, it really doesn't I am actually surprised I managed five paragraphs talking about it. I was told while leaving the theater by someone that had seen the first film the sequel wasn't as good, but I do expect families with young children to get a kick out of it — that is when the two leads aren't smooching — and won't be surprised if this one repeats with big dollars at the box-office. The film has pretty colors, loud noises and a little monkey. I mean, what more could a kid want from a film?