Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian

Every movie offers a different experience.  Some blow us away with special effects inspiring adventure, some woo us with love making us cuddle our sweeties, some provide a powerful message challenging us to change the world.  Unfortunately, when movies do nothing more than entertain us for a few hours we often pan them or write them off a trite pieces of trash.  Sitting in the theatre watching Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian I found myself smiling, chuckling and finally laughing.  When I realized what was happening I put down my critical pen for acting, story, direction and all the regular things and simply checked in to see if I was enjoying myself.  Night at the Museum 2 offers nothing more than a few hours of good old entertainment.

A lot has happened since the first Night at the Museum.  Larry Daly, played by Ben Stiller, has left his position as museum night guard and become the successful owner of Daly Devices, a company that sells useful devices such as the glow in the dark flashlight. In his absence the old museum has been handed over to progress, new technology has come in and all the old exhibits are being put into permanent storage beneath the Smithsonian.  When Larry receives a desperate call from Jebediah Smith, the miniscule and tough talking cowboy played by Owen Wilson, that he and all of his wax friends are under attack by the evil Kahmunrah, played by Hank Azaria, Larry must dawn his guard uniform once again to help his endangered friends.

There is nothing grandiose about this movie but there are a few highlights deserving special attention.  Ben Stiller plays the quick witted confrontational character he perfected through films such as Madagascar, Tropic Thunder and Dodgeball.  He does not give us anything new but he is still fun to watch particularly in the scene with Brandon (pronounced Brundun) the Smithsonian guard played by Jonah Hill.  Hill and Stiller stand toe to toe matching wits with the same tempo and speech pattern that Stiller uses for many of his characters.  This mirror image of attitudes is worth the cost of admission.  Amelia Earhart, played by Amy Adams, provides the movie’s straight man.  Adams plays this character with “moxy”, the zest for life which she notes Larry has lost.  Her tongue is quick but not humorous, it focusses on living life to the fullest and following your dreams.  Adams keeps this often heavy handed message light hearted while using it to drive her inspiring character's vivaciousness.  Last but not least, Hank Azaria graces the screen with another one of his great characters denoted by his unique and always interesting speech choices.  As the evil ruler Kah Mun Rah he is everything but menacing and terrible; rather he is quite silly and perfectly suited to play this misguided ruler.  No one stands out and no one will win an Oscar for these roles; however, they do keep us smiling from start to finish.

Keeping us smiling and sometimes laughing is the experience Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian offers.  There are no Oscar winning performances, no life changing messages rammed down our throats, no cutting edge special effects that will change movie the industry, or even a unique or new plot to go down in film history.  Although these elements are not present in the movie, Battle of the Smithsonian does not suffer for their absence.  This movie is light hearted, humorous and fun, and truly it does not need to be anything more or less than what it is.