Night At The Museum 2

Review by Sean Lynch

While many of my movie-critic counterparts blasted the first Night At The Museum for being a waste of cash - I have to admit, I secretly loved it.

Sure, it wasn't the most hilarious comedy in the world... but it was enough like Jumanji to secure a lasting effect on my imagination... and I'm sure the imagination of kids as well.

So with a swag of cash under it's belt (over $570M worldwide, plus another $150M in DVD sales), an extra $40M added to it's budget it was only a matter of time before a bigger, better instalment hit our screens.

And - by and large - Night At The Museum 2 : Battle Of The Smithsonian is bigger and much, much better.

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 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 its 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Scenes essentially play out as mini sketches and there is rarely a moment where a character or historical reference out stays it's welcome.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...

3.5 out of 5

Night At The Museum 2
Australian release: 21st May, 2009
Official Site: Night At The Museum 2
Cast: Ben Stiller, Christopher Guest, Robin Williams, Amy Adams, Owen Wilson, Hank Azaria
Director: Shawn Levy