Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian Review

Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian comes packed with plenty of laughs, maybe even a good amount of heart, but not much of a plot.

The movie begins with some hopes that this won't be the same old set of laughs we got in the first Night at the Museum movie. Ben Stiller's Larry Daly has been upgraded from night watchman to the executive of a company whose inventions are, conveniently, all related to the plot of the first film (i.e., a glow-in-the-dark flashlight and giant bone). But when Daly finds out all his old friends at the NYC Museum of Natural History will be going into "deep storage" in Washington D.C.'s Smithsonian archives, it's of course up to him to save them. The next logical move is for Daly to find a way to keep them at the museum.

But director Shawn Levy makes it clear very early that this movie is not about logic. Instead, Levy decides to up the ante by shipping our favorite characters off to D.C. Somehow Dexter the monkey-er, sorry, the capuchin (watch the movie; you'll get the correction)-manages to steal the Tablet of Akhmenrah that brings all the museum exhibits to life. When and how he does it is one of several plot holes in the film.

The theft results in some pretty funny reanimations in D.C. Among them are Amelia Earhart (Amy Adams), the Thinker statue, and Kahmunrah (Hank Azaria), Akhmenrah's older brother who quickly begins a quest for world domination.

Hank Azaria becomes something of a show-stealer in Night at the Museum 2 with his lisping, English-accented Kahmunrah. Azaria is featured just as much as, if not more than, Stiller himself, thanks to his voice-acting talents. Aside from playing the disgruntled Pharaoh, he also voices the Thinker and Abe Lincoln; all three characters make up for many, if not most, of the laughs in the film.

Another scene-stealer, though to a lesser degree than Azaria, is 's Jonah Hill. Hill plays Brandon, a Smithsonian guard who accosts Stiller when he moves toward a Smithsonian exhibit with what Brandon calls an "I.T.T." (intention to touch). Hill's over-eager guard grants both laughs of his own and laughs over the witty yet absurd banter that arises between the two characters. And you'll have to watch the movie to see how Brandon is pronounced, which makes for another of Hill's many laughs.

Unfortunately, for all the character laughs, Night at the Museum 2 feels mostly like a larger scale Toy Story minus the plot. Even Amy Adams' Amelia Earhart comes off as overly perky and obnoxiously flippant about the dangers the reanimated museum pieces face in the film. Returning characters Jedediah Smith (Owen Wilson) and Octavius (Steve Coogan) produce some chuckles, but ultimately prove flatter than the reanimated Al Capone cut-out (Jon Bernthal). Many of the film's funnier moments were so over-played in commercial advertisements that, by the time you saw them in the film, they hardly seemed worth the wait. (I will say, to be fair, that Octavius' run in with a "wild beast" outside the Smithsonian's walls proves pretty funny, but I won't ruin the surprise by telling you what it is).

The biggest thrill for me while watching this film was watching it on a huge IMAX screen. In case you haven't heard, Night at the Museum 2 is being released on both standard and IMAX screens. The larger than life action of the film takes on a whole new dimension when viewed on a larger than life screen. It may put a bigger hole in your pocket, but it's definitely worth the experience!