Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian Review

Do you remember that time when those museum statues came to life? Well their back and with many more adversaries and friends than ever before in the sequel to Night at the Museum, Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian directed by Shawn Levy and starring Ben Stiller. For a lot of families the first Night at the Museum movie really captured the magic of seeing lifeless figures that families often visit in museums come to life and partake in a rip-roaring adventure with a supporting cast including comedic talent like Owen Wilson as Jedediah the funny miniature cowboy. The sequel on the other hand more or less does the same thing but infuses more of a blockbuster esque punch into it then the first one did. This film is bigger and grander in scale as some time has passed since the first adventure and Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) has quit his night guard job from the first film and started a technology company Larry Devices and found great success; however he is not truly content as when he sees that his favorite friends the statues from the museum in the first movie are about to be shipped off to the Smithsonian Institution and won’t be accompanied by the life giving Tablet he jumps into action. Larry debated this action at first but after realizing that this was something he must do he does everything he can to ensure his friends’ safety. However, he runs into trouble though when the Tablet arrives at the Smithsonian Institution and gives life to a whole other host of statutes including some villainous threats, the most prominent of them all being Ivan the Terrible who wishes to conquer all. In order to save his friends, Larry must team up with a statue come to life Amelia Earhart (Amy Adams) and stop Ivan the Terrible from conquering.



The cast is built with some impressive talent. Their is Ben Stiller who returns to portray Larry Daley and effectively shows the journey that his character is going down, as he steps down from success to do something to make a difference. Amy Adams does a wonderful job portraying the wonderfully spunky Amelia Earhart, as she is a light in this movie for some audience going parents who may find the movie absurdly ridiculous. The cast is well rounded off with returning Owen Wilson who does a great job bringing to life Jedediah a cowboy for all intents and purposes is glad to be alive and Robin Williams as Teddy Roosevelt who as in the first film encaptures a powerful leader and mentor figure to the hero of the story Larry Daley. The villain Ivan The Terrible played by Christopher Guest is surprisingly entertaining as he brings an intensity of malevolence to the screen while at the same time presenting enormous defects such as his stuttering. This cast delivers a great experience for families as they entertain and bring to life the characters they are portraying at a top caliber level. The character development in this story though is lacking. Larry Daley does go from being on the ring of success to returning to night guard duty, but all the audience is ever really given is throwing Larry back into an adventure to change his mind about what makes him happy. Amelia Earhart while being a great foil to Larry is primarily a static character in the film as she doesn’t really develop to the point where you really believed in the relationship presented here between Larry and Amelia. The primary objective of this film obviously isn’t to infuse rich characters but tell a entertaining story that will turn out money.

So what do all these conjectures really say or mean? Is this a worthwhile addition to family entertainment? What does this film have to say about how we view historical figures? I believe this film is worth a family’s time, especially for those families that have parents that want to view a film with their kids that they will be entertained by to. The story brings historical figures to life literally through the magical Tablet and in doing so if someone reflectively looks back at this concept they may see that this is the writer's way of informing the audience that history is rich and full of interesting characters and should be respected. Overall I think Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian is a fun action-packed entertaining family film which delivers thrills but lacks in character development. I am assigning this film a score of 7/10.

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