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The
latest flick begins several years after the first, only now Larry Daley
(Ben Stiller) is a multi-millionaire with a line of novelty items being
whored out on late night TV by George Foreman.
Inexplicably,
Daley misses the excitement of working the night guard shift at the
Museum, so decides to head back to say hello to his old wax-faced
friends.
But, much like life, things aren't like they used to be
- as Larry discovers his beloved Museum of Natural History is getting a
makeover... meaning that it's out with the artifacts, in with space aged
holigrafic learning technology.
So our pals from the first film get shipped off to deep storage in Washington's Smithsonian.
All
seems lost until it's discovered that the pesky monkey, Dexter, has
stolen the magical tablet of Ahkmenrah (which brings the exhibits to
life every night) resulting in a whole world of trouble for Washington
DC.
And now - we have our movie, an empty palette, waiting for the imagination to run wild.
Bringing
the Smithsonian Institution to life is a joy to watch, and surely
couldn't be an easy task, yet Shawn Levy has done extremely well.
The Smithsonian houses the world's largest museum
complex with more than 136 million items in its collections ranging
from the plane Amelia Earhart flew, to Al Capone's mug shot, Dorothy's ruby
red slippers and Oscar the Grouch's trash can.
Needless to say, the ideas and pop culture references flow thick and fast.
With a more streamlined sense of fun than the first, Night At The Museum 2 is faster, more exciting and delivers more laughs than it's predecessor.
Scenes essentially
play out as mini sketches and there is rarely a moment where a
character or historical reference out-stays it's welcome.
Some
superb cameos (from both figures of history, art and science - and the
actors playing them) really makes this franchise truly unique. Think of
it as the Oceans 11 of kids movies.
Hank
Azaria is superb as always, Ricky Gervais delivers the best of his - so
far - underwhelming silverscreen performances to date, Amy Adams
continues on her merry way as "that girl who sounds like she is from
the 1920s in every movie she does", while the teaming of Steve Coogan
and Owen Wilson blossoms.
Extra points must be awarded to an early scene involving Ben Stiller and Superbad's
Jonah Hill - it is a perfect example of the controlled looseness of the
comedy on offer this time around and is without doubt the comedic
highlight of the entire film.
Solid from beginning to end with
just as much for the adults as there is for the tykes, this is big
budget mainstream family film making at it's best.
Easily
digestible, consistently entertaining - and most importantly - you can
see that every cent of it's $150M budget was well spent.
Bring on Night At The Museum 3 : Scienceworks in Spotswood... DVD Special Features
Fairly patchy collection of odds and ends - a
few featurettes like "The Curators of Comedy : Behind the Scenes",
"Historical Confessions", "Primate Prima Donnas", plus there are a
bunch of interactive features on Blu-ray. Conclusion:
Movie 75% Extras: 55%
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