The sequel to
Night at the Museum,
Night at the
Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
isn’t as good as the first move but
it’s not that much worse. There are
a lot of similarities between the
two films but the original is
usually better… that seems to be the
rule… and that’s the rule here too.
Larry Daly is
long past his days as a night guard
at the Museum of Natural History in
New York. He’s become an inventor of
sorts, running his own company and
not having a lot of time for
anything else. He’s moved on from
the museum, occasionally visiting,
but for the most part leaving it
behind and taking it for granted.
When the Museum of Natural History
gets renovated, all of the exhibits
are sent to the Smithsonian for
storage, including the magical
tablet that makes them all come to
life. With the tablet at the world’s
largest museum, chaos explodes and
it’s up to Larry and his historical
friends to save the day.
There are several
great things about this movie. The
effects are tremendous. Especially
the work in the art department of
the Smithsonian. How they brought
those exhibits to life is awesome.
That can also be said for a few of
the different animals too. The
implementation of the imagination
that this movie has is outstanding.
The effects are great, but the cast
is outstanding. A few of the cast
members returned from the original
movie; Robin Williams and Owen
Wilson among them, but added to the
already stellar cast is Amy Adams
who did an outstanding job as Amelia
Earhart.
This movie does face the same
problem that the original did. An
hour or so in, after the museum has
been discovered and they’ve
implemented everything they were
going to implement with that, the
movie hits a wall and it gets
slightly stale. Other than that
there's no real set up for danger
either, Hank Azaria does a decent
job as Kahmunrah, the
villain in the
story, but his best Stewie Griffin
impression isn’t at all terrifying
and you can’t really grasp any sort
of feeling of mortal peril in the
movie at all.
The Blu-Ray
packaging of his movie is a good
one. Fox went all out and provided a
Blu-Ray copy, a DVD, and a
Digital-Copy of the film. There’s
really not a better packaging option
available and in lots of ways, even
if you don’t have Blu-Ray player,
it’s better to just invest the money
in this package so you have it when
the standard moves on.
The bonus features and extras are
good on this set. You get lots of
short/behind the scenes things and
you also get tons of deleted scenes
including an alternate ending.
.
Battle of the
Smithsonian wasn’t as good as the
original Night at the Museum,
there were a few patch work jobs in
the script and a few other small
holes that prevented it from being
better. Still, it’s a fun family
film that kids and adults will all
enjoy. It definitely has its charm
and it’s a great pick-up for
families.
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