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Is it worth $10? No
“Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” is a fun movie, but that doesn’t necessarily make it good. If all you want is a bigger version of the 2006 hit “Night at the Museum,” it should suffice. But this film lacks the novelty of the original, its story is more scattered, and the visual effects are serviceable, not remarkable. In truth, it’s a bit of a letdown.
No longer a nighttime security guard at the Museum of Natural History in New York City, Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) is now a successful entrepreneur of gadget devices like glow-in-the-dark flashlights. But he still visits his friends Jedediah (Owen Wilson), Octavius (Steve Coogan) and Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams) from time to time, or often enough to know that a museum executive (Ricky Gervais) is planning to ship them off to the Smithsonian for permanent storage.
And so Larry travels to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C., to save the day. There he meets thrill-seeking aviatrix Amelia Earhart (Amy Adams), who develops a crush on him, and Civil War general George Custer (Bill Hader). The villain is an ancient Egyptian pharaoh named Kahmunrah (Hank Azaria), who’s enlisted the help of fellow baddies Napoleon (Alain Chabat), Ivan the Terrible (Christopher Guest) and Al Capone (Joe Bernthal) to help him take over the world.
Part of the fun in director Shawn Levy’s sequel is seeing famous and infamous historical figures come to life. The always-reliable Adams has great spunk as Earhart, but Azaria is bland as the villain and, because of the ridiculous amount of characters, no one else has enough screen time to make an impact. This includes the statues that come to life: Abraham Lincoln (voice of Azaria) doles out “honest” advice from the chair of his memorial, and the Jonas Brothers are three singing cherubs, but neither is very memorable. Worse, the visual effects are not an improvement on what we saw in the first film, although they are competently rendered.
As for the story by Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon, it’s all over the place. Part of the problem is the location: Levy gets so enamored with showing off everything the Smithsonian has to offer that he forgets to tell an interesting story, though it is neat to see the Tuskegee Airmen, space chimps, Wright Brothers, etc.
To wit, in an odd, indirect and half-assed way, “Battle of the Smithsonian” is a way for young children to learn some basics about world history while being entertained. It’s just too bad that for adults the level of entertainment is commensurate with the little amount knowledge the kids are receiving. And that’s just not good.
Did you know? The Smithsonian Institution was founded in 1846 when British scientist James Smithson left $500,000 in his will to the United States. Although he never stepped foot in the U.S., he wanted the country to have a special place devoted to the "increase the diffusion of knowledge." Today it is the largest museum complex in the world.
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