Current mood:	lazy
Entry tags:	cinema, hollywood, movie review, travels

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: BATTLE FOR THE SMITHSONIAN
The new NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM is pretty fun, with some chuckles, and a lively Amy Adams as Amelia Earheart spouting spunky 30's phrases. Many of our favorites from the 2006 movie are there. Ben Stiller of course. The little diorama guys, Jedidiah and Octavius, who now are best buds, the cowboy and the centurian. Teddy Roosevelt has found love with Sacajawea. The cavemen and the monkey, the Easter Island "dum-dum head" head...

Now Ben Stiller has become a Ronco/Ginzu Knife type of inventor. Much like the TV show personalities in my comedy script I will finish polishing this weekend -- CAN'T SAY NO. Something makes him go back to the New York Museum of Natural History, where he learns the exhibits are being boxed up and sent to the Smithsonian. Including the magical Egyptian scroll that makes all the exhibits animate each night and have wild adventures. Somehow this is an event he needs to prevent... because...? The plot mechanism isn't really strong, obviously.

But there are some new characters brought to life, including Hank Azaria (I love him!) as evil Pharoah Kamenrah who does a wonderful toffee-nosed Boris Karloff English accent with a Castillian lisp. He's got some funny scenes where you know he's riffing ad libs, and they keep them in. Kamenrah plans to take over the world, and must be stopped! Oh, and since there are 15+ museums in the Smithsonian, they have lots of more contraptions and critters and people to play with. A feature in this movie is that the magic makes paintings and photos live and visitable. The physics of it all really doesn't work plausibly, but it has some funny stuff and a set-up that pays off at the very end.

It's doing well in the box office. I love visiting the Smithsonian, so hopefully this helps them get more traffic and sell more gift shop stuff. Every time I go visit Samily, we do the Smithsonian at least once. In fact, their condo is built on a hill that Wilbur Wright flew a plane to from Washington DC during a special demo on the use of flight for federal purposes. Planes are a big deal in this movie, as is the whole of Washington DC. Stuff like that is fun.

But the movie isn't great. It doesn't have much of an emotional arc or a heart at the center. And it, like the first one, cannot get the magic to work out logically. Spoilers!
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Much like the first one had Teddy Roosevelt being Teddy Roosevelt and gung-ho when it was needed to enliven the plot, but then in a key moment when it was needed to manipulate the audience, the TR character was reinforced as just a wax character with no heart? This one has Jedidiah being menaced with smothering by sand. Ben Stiller has to rush urgently to do the bidding of the evil Pharoah! Otherwise Jed will cough his last cough!

But there are also scenes of the many human and animal characters being put into shipping crates, no air holes, just locked in. And they were fine about it, cheerily waving as if saying 'goodnight.' If that's okay, why does the magic require that Owen Wilson need to breathe?

And if Pharoah Kamenrah will lose his animation when the sun comes up, how evil can his world domination plans be? Yes, he claims the magical tablets will do other nefarious things, like enslave mankind. But we don't see that. We sure don't see that he can command the tablet to any degree. So the threats and menace? Missed the mark and not too great.