Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian (2009)

Unsure of what to watch tonight I decided to get this one out of the way. A few months ago I watched the first Night at the Museum and found it surprisingly likable. After I found out it had a sequel, I was quite interested in watching it, so today I finally did. Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian takes place some time after the events of the first movie. It's not disclosed exactly how long, but it's been at least a few months since Larry Daley quit his job as a night watchmen after his invention company took off and made him rich. While he's been gone, the museum has decided to get rid of the old displays and update with holograms and new technology. Larry to the rescue! Hit the jump to see if he also keeps the franchise safe.




What made the first movie so great was all the awesome characters and actors that populated nearly every role in the cast. Battle for the Smithsonian tries to do the same and doing it one better by adding in a whole bunch of new characters in the form of exhibits that are at the Smithsonian museum and weren't at the museum of the first movie. We get historical figures like Al Capone, Napoleon, and Ivan the Terrible, Amelia Earhart, General Custer, Abe Lincoln and the statue of The Thinker as well as a host of others like a giant octopus.

Amelia Earhart is a sassy lady looking for adventure!

 The problem is that the majority of these new characters aren't recognizable actors, or barely have any real character brought to them. Also from the sheer number of the gigantic cast, we now get even less time with the characters from the first film (who are ALL back by the way) that I really cared about. Also, most of the new recognizable comedic actors are in bit parts that we never see again.

There are a bunch of people from The Office tv show who only have a line or two, Jonah Hill has a funny bit at the start as the Smithsonian's security watchmen, Eugene Levy is a voice of some Albert Einstein bobbleheads, and Jay Baruchel as a sailor in a painting. Sadly most of the new characters that get a lot of screen time aren't really special. Amelia Earhart and Abe Lincoln are cool, as is the giant octopus, but they don't carry the impact of Robin Williams and Owen Wilson who have decidedly smaller roles this time out.

The main cast of bad henchmen are sadly no-name actors

There are a lot of things I can nitpick about. The action is certainly not as cool or impactful compared to the first, and the bad guy Kahmunrah, the evil brother of Ahkmenrah, is really kind of lame in my opinion. There also didn't seem to be as many jokes this time. I remember the first being fairly funny, but this time around it just didn't work as well. In the first movie there was a cute scene were Larry gets in an immature slapping fight with a monkey. In this one they stop the action in a MAJOR action scene to have Larry have almost the same scene with the same monkey plus the monkey that was sent into space. This time it just comes off as a horrible pace breaker, as well as a lazy joke that was done before far better.

Larry vs Kahmunrah

However I do have to give it to the effects again here as there's some really cool Egyptian birdmen and a bunch of paintings that come to life too which was really cool! The octopus was great too and the few scenes with Jedidiah and Octavius were always great. They have a super slow-mo/speed ramped fight scene totally mocking 300 which was pretty good.

So in the end, all was not lost. Sure there are things I can complain about, but really they're just nitpicks as I said because overall I was still able to enjoy the movie. It did seem really short though, because the first took place over a long period of time, while this one is all within one night. It was like they jumped right into the final heist scene of the first movie without any of the build-up. So it wasn't as good as the first, but it wasn't bad either. It's a good family movie filled with wild special effects and it kept me entertained. Not much else you can ask for, although I'd be wary if a third one came out.