Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian

I watched a movie and it was called Night at the Museum: Battle for the Smithsonian, directed by Shawn Levy, released in 2009. It stars Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Amy Adams, Hank Azaria, Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan and Christopher Guest, to name a few. It is the sequel to Night at the Museum, which is becoming a franchise. The story is that Benn Stiller’s character gets rich on some inventions and has been gone from the museum as a night watchman for a few months. He finds out that his friends the exhibits are being replaced by digital representations and being shipped off to storage in the Smithsonian institution in Washington, D.C. (which turns out to be a giant compound). To make matters worse, the monkey brought the tablet that brings them to life along and things get even worse from there. Will Larry, played by Ben Stiller, get his friends back and save the museum?

This is a really funny movie with a lot of historical references in it, which came as a surprise to me considering this is a family film. For instance, Larry meets Amelia Earheart and George Custer in this installment as well as Al Capone, Ivan the Terrible and Napoleon.  The one thing I found most interesting is that they made a point to drop some historical knowledge about Amelia Earheart, at least two things which I certainly didn’t know, other than the obvious, that she was lost and a pilot. Amy Adams does a great job as Amelia and really conveys what would be her “can do” spirit. Plus there is a really funny joke when Stiller is talking to his son to get the directions in the back room of the museum and he says Stiller tells him he found Amelia Earheart and his kid freaks. It was a subtle joke but still funny if you know a little about her. Hank Azaria plays the “villain” in this as the Pharaoh, channeling some delightful Boris Karloff as the Mummy and comes off smashing. Christopher Guest as Ivan the Terrible is awesome as well considering he doesn’t say that much and it’s mostly standing and looking, well, terrible. It was a real straight forward movie that got right into the action and had some really good pacing for the most part. I did have some issues with the incessant use of “improv” between the characters, trying to up each other in lines, which got tedious in one or two scenes but there isnt too much of thankfully. I wonder if it was a 105 minute Smithsonian commercial since they went to the Natural History portion and the Air and Space portion. It doesn’t bother me since I haven’t been to either but it just seemed like it for the most part. Then again, I like museums so it was cool to see them running around and having adventures.
Overall, I thought it was a pretty funny sequel and it was pretty consistent with plot and very funny. There were only a few minor complaints but it is still worth seeing.