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Rating 2½
Directed by Shawn Levy
Written by Thomas Lennon, from a story by Robert Ben Garant, based on the book by Milan Trenc
Starring Ben Stiller (Larry Daley), Amy Adams (Amelia Earhart), Owen Wilson (Jedediah Smith), Steve Coogan (Gaius Octavius), Hank Azaria (Kahmunrah, The Thinker and Abraham Lincoln), Christopher Guest (Ivan the Terrible), Alain Chabet (Napoleon Bonapart), Jon Bernthal (Al Capone), Bill Hader (General George Armstrong Custer), Jon Bernthal (Attila the Hun), Mizuo Peck (Sacagawea), Rami Malek (Ahkmenrah), Jake Cherry (Nicky Daley), the Jonas Brothers (the Cupids), Ricky Gervais (Dr McPhee) and Robin Williams (Theodore Roosevelt)
Three years have passed since Larry Daley was the night guard at the American Museum of Natural History. He now owns his own company that manufactures his inventions, including a glow-in-the-dark flashlight. When he visits the museum again he discovers that it is closed for renovation and most of the old exhibits are being permanently moved to storage in the Federal Archives at the Smithsonian Institution. Larry flies to Washington and is able to gain access into the archive where, when the suns sets, the exhibits come to life and he has to call on the help of Amelia Earhart and General George Armstrong Custer to help him to stop the Pharaoh Kahmunrah, who intends to unleash the army of the underworld.
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I watched ‘Night at the Museum’ really wanting to like it and came away disappointed. It was, however, a major box office success and a sequel was inevitable. The second film, like its predecessor, was released to mixed reviews and has a 44% rotten rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 155 reviews. The first film was also given a 44% rating from 126 reviews. The sequel did not quite manage to emulate the success of the first film at the box office, although it did gross a little over £412 million against a production budget of $150 million, placing it at No.7 in the worldwide grosses of 2009 according to Box Office Mojo.
‘Battle of the Smithsonian’ largely follows the format of the first film, just with a bigger setting and, one supposes, a bigger budget. This time around there is no necessity to introduce Larry Daley into the secret magical world and have him come to terms with the reality of exhibits that come to life at night when the museum is shut. Perhaps that is part of the reason why I enjoyed this second film a lot more than the first one. It shares many of the faults of the first film, but it doesn’t get bogged down in the stilted exposition of that film and we are also spared the presence of the decidedly less than amusing Dick Van Dyke (who I don’t dislike) and Mickey Rooney. However, a more likely reason for my preference for the sequel is Amy Adams. The film undoubtedly benefits from her screen presence, her likeability and her already well established acting skills. Her Amelia Earhart might not be a multi-layered character study in this setting, but she is perfectly cast in the role.
Review posted 1 November 2009
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Rating 2
Directed by Shawn Levy
Written by Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon, from the book by Milan Trenc
Starring Ben Stiller (Larry Daley), Carla Gugino (Rebecca), Dick Van Dyke (Cecil), Bill Cobbs (Reginald), Mickey Rooney (Gus), Jake Cherry (Nick Daley), Kim Raver (Erica Daley), Paul Rudd (Don), Robin Williams (Theodore Roosevelt), Owen Wilson (Jedediah), Steve Coogan (Octavius), Mizuo Peck (Sacajawea), Rami Malek (Ahkmenrah), Patruick Gallagher (Attila the Hun), Pierfrancesco Favino (Christopher Columbus) and Ricky Gervais (Dr McPhee)
Larry Daley is a dreamer whose fanciful ambitions have prevented him from finding steady employment. He is divorced and has a young son. When he faces eviction from his apartment in Brooklyn and talks about moving out to Queens, his ex-wife Erica threatens to take away his visiting rights, pointing out that their son Nick has already been let down too many times before. Larry reluctantly takes a job as a night guard at the American Museum of Natural History, employed as a cost-cutting exercise to replace three elderly guards, Cecil, Reginald and Gus, who have been there for more than fifty years, but are now to lose their jobs. On his first night, Larry discovers that all the exhibits come to life when the museum is shut.
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‘Night at the Museum’ is a 2006 film based on the 1993 children’s picture book ‘The Night at the Museum’ by the Croatian writer and illustrator Milan Trenc. In this original picture book it is only the dinosaurs that come to life, but in the film it is all the exhibits. An expanded novelisation of the original picture book, written by Leslie Goldman, was published in 2006 to tie-in with the release of the film.
The film received mixed reaction from critics and has a 44% rotten rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 126 reviews. It had a production budget of $110 million and grossed in excess of $574 million at the box office worldwide. A sequel, ‘Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian’, with an even bigger budget, was released in 2009 and has so far grossed $293 million.
‘Night at the Museum’ is a family comedy action adventure film that relies heavily on special effects. It is very typical of its type and falls into the trap that ensnares most such films coming out of Hollywood, being smothered in lashings of cheesy schmaltz and succumbing to unsatisfactorily simple-minded moralising. However, this is no less commendable than the in-built cynicism that allows us to identify these faults in the first place and the film is moderately passable, up to a point. Unfortunately, there is something missing here and it is not only the disappointing absence of invention. The film is simply not as funny as it needs to be (in fact, it rarely raises a laugh at all) and, ultimately, it just lacks heart. The exhibits may come to life, but the film rarely does.
Robin Williams puts in a disappointingly flat performance as Theodore Roosevelt and his presence reminds us that ‘Night at the Museum’ is a pale shadow of Williams’ hugely enjoyable 1995 outing ‘Jumanji’, which possessed infinitely more verve and inventiveness than this rather spongy mess of a film, which I really wanted to like a lot more than I ended up doing.
Director Shawn Levy was previously responsible for two dire Steve Martin vehicles, ‘Cheaper by the Dozen’ and the 2006 remake of the ‘The Pink Panther’.
Review posted 15 June 2009
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Three years have passed since Larry Daley was the night guard at the American Museum of Natural History. He now owns his own company that manufactures his inventions, including a glow-in-the-dark flashlight. When he visits the museum again he discovers that it is closed for renovation and most of the old exhibits are being permanently moved to storage in the Federal Archives at the Smithsonian Institution. Larry flies to Washington and is able to gain access into the archive where, when the suns sets, the exhibits come to life and he has to call on the help of Amelia Earhart and General George Armstrong Custer to help him to stop the Pharaoh Kahmunrah, who intends to unleash the army of the underworld.
‘Battle of the Smithsonian’ largely follows the format of the first film, just with a bigger setting and, one supposes, a bigger budget. This time around there is no necessity to introduce Larry Daley into the secret magical world and have him come to terms with the reality of exhibits that come to life at night when the museum is shut. Perhaps that is part of the reason why I enjoyed this second film a lot more than the first one. It shares many of the faults of the first film, but it doesn’t get bogged down in the stilted exposition of that film and we are also spared the presence of the decidedly less than amusing Dick Van Dyke (who I don’t dislike) and Mickey Rooney. However, a more likely reason for my preference for the sequel is Amy Adams. The film undoubtedly benefits from her screen presence, her likeability and her already well established acting skills. Her Amelia Earhart might not be a multi-layered character study in this setting, but she is perfectly cast in the role.
