Night At The Museum : Battle of The Smithsonian

If it were not for Kahmunrah, the crazy lisping Egyptian pharaoh, Night at The Museum : The Battle of The Smithsonian would be a killer movie – it would bore us all to death !!

The second edition of Night at the Museum features Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) and all his old pals – Jedediah (Owen Wilson), Octavius, Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams), the monkey etc. And some new characters – the aforementioned Kahmunrah, Ivan the Terrible, Napolean Bonaparte, Al Capone, General Custer, Amelia Earhart & Abraham Lincoln. If it seems like a who’s who from history – its exactly that, and nothing more.

The plot – well there is not much of it – is that Larry Daley has moved on in life and not much in touch with his museum buddies, till one day when he finds out that they are being shipped off to the Federal Archives in the Smithsonian and being replaced by 3D holographic thingies. However, the tablet also goes with them and they awaken some not-so-nice historical characters and so begins a grand good-vs-evil battle utilizing all of Smithsonian museum exhibits. And I didn’t mean it in any good way

You’d think having all great historical characters come back to life would be quite amusing – however they are as boring and one-dimensional as possible ! The acts are very insipid, with not an ounce of creativity. Particularly irritating is Amelia Earhart, played by Amy Adams. Too much time is given to her and her romance with Larry – it almost squeezes out life from this movie. From time to time, oxygen is administered in form of Kahmunrah, who is the only genuinely funny guy in the entire movie (and gets this movie an extra 0.5 stars). However with an average of one joke every half an hour, this movie is never quite recovers from its weaknesses.

Performances are again nothing much to write about. Ben Stiller does the slightly-bemused/befuddled look very easily and doesn’t look like he is trying hard at all. All the others hardly have any worthwhile screentime. Owen Wilson has nothing else to do apart from being trapped in a hourglass by Kahmunrah.

Unless you want to be half bored to death, avoid Night at The Museum 2. Catch all of five jokes on youtube if you want, but do not pay to fall asleep in the cinema.