Movie Review: Night at the Museum - Battle of the Smithsonian

Siobhan Synnot - Scotland on Sunday

The original Night At the Museum told the simple story of a bunch of old exhibits that came to life after sunset - whether you wanted them to revive or not. This may well be the story of why Night At The Museum: Battle Of The Smithsonian was made. An effects-crazed comedy, Ben Stiller once again stars as Larry Daley, former nightwatchman at New York's Museum of Natural History where a curse attached to an Egyptian tablet makes creatures and historical figures run amok. Alas, so does the plot.

The sequel is set two years later, and Daley has set himself up as a successful inventor of must-haves such as the glow-in-the-dark torch (so you can find the torch in the dark) and gets lauded in a paid-for infomercial by George Foreman, king of grilling machines. But when his waxworks pals and exhibits are shipped off for storage in the basement of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC, he rushes off to rescue them from a new villain, camp pharaoh Kah Mun Rah (Hank Azaria). Kah Mun Rah wants Stiller to decipher a code that will open a gateway to the Underworld, and has overpowered the Natural History incomers by joining forces with Al Capone, Ivan the Terrible and Napoleon. But this is still basically Jumanji in a museum. It's even got Robin Williams again.

The main difference this time around is scale. The Natural History Museum is one big building. The Smithsonian is 19 big buildings which dominate Washington DC's centre from the Senate to the Lincoln Memorial. The Smithsonian also has far more of what Daley's son identifies as "cool stuff," such as Rodin's The Thinker and Star Wars' Darth Vader, and a huge art gallery so that Daley can enter paintings in order to borrow a pitchfork from the American Gothic couple, or escape from Egyptian warriors by diving into the crowd behind the kissing couple in Alfred Eisenstaedt's V-J Day in Times Square.

Besides Ben Stiller, Owen Wilson's cowboy, Steve Coogan's Roman centurion and the rest of the Natural History mannequins, Battle Of The Smithsonian feels less of a sequel, more like a remake of the first film. In the first film there's an endless piece of schtick where Stiller and a monkey exchange slaps. That moment returns, but this time there are two monkeys because the Space exhibit includes the first primate to orbit the earth, so the slapping goes on even longer. Yet, while there's time for chimp abuse in this picture, there isn't time to smooth out some of the script glitches. It doesn't even bother updating us on what has happened to Carla Gugino, the museum receptionist who provided Ben Stiller with a love interest in the first film. There's also the question of whether the waxworks and models are to be regarded as imitations of famous historical figures, or the real thing brought to life. In the first film, Robin Williams's blustery Teddy Roosevelt admits in a weak moment that he knows he is not the 26th president but merely a synthetic product manufactured in Poughkeepsie. No such self- knowledge appears to exist within Amy Adam's Amelia Earhart in this film, however. Her Earhart not only quotes her own biography but can also fly planes just like the real thing - although Adams also seems under the impression that Amelia was a lot like Katherine Hepburn in her Bringing Up Baby days too.

Every bit as frantic as it sounds, you have to admire the energy and visual invention that goes into this film, but it works far too hard for the small number of laughs on offer. Night At The Museum: Battle Of The Smithsonian is a reasonable watch, with just enough bright colour and commotion to keep game-bred children from snoozing, but it lacks edge and emotional clout. This is one of those computer-generated-image films designed by computer guys to impress each other more than audiences. If only family comedies could evolve a bit more and not assume that convincing special effects and a strong cast automatically add up to fun. On the plus side, who knows: maybe this film might make kids want to escape and visit an actual museum.

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