Blu-Ray Review: Overly Manic ‘Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian’

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CHICAGO – The CGI smorgasbord that is “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” is likely to suffice as a babysitter this holiday season as eggnog is made or holiday shopping is concluded. Families are likely to be satisfied by the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink mania that will work for toddlers hopped up on Christmas candy, but the film itself will collapse for their parents, babysitters, and even their older siblings.

HollywoodChicago.com Blu-Ray Rating: 2.5/5.0
Blu-Ray Rating: 2.5/5.0

A slight improvement over the original (a film I truly didn’t like) merely due to the inclusion of Amy Adams and the absence of that film’s overcooked father/son story, “Battle of the Smithsonian” follows the “turn up the volume” model of sequels. “What worked about the original? Let’s make it bigger! And louder!”

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian was released on Blu-Ray and DVD on December 1st, 2009.
Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian was released on Blu-Ray and DVD on December 1st, 2009.
Photo credit: Fox Home Video

Where the first film featured the exhibits at the Museum of Natural History coming to life and a few stars in cameo roles, the new one takes place at the Smithsonian and is packed front to back with actors bringing history to life. Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) returns to save the day when his friends from the first film are held captive by the deadly Kahmunrah (Hank Azaria), an Egyptian pharaoh trying to bring an underworld army back to life. As the entire Smithsonian comes to life, historical figures take sides with Ivan the Terrible (Christopher Guest), Napoleon (Alain Chabat), and Al Capone (Jon Benthal) predictably evil and Amelia Earhart (Amy Adams), George Custer (Bill Hader), and many more coming to the defense of the good guys.

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian was released on Blu-Ray and DVD on December 1st, 2009.
Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian was released on Blu-Ray and DVD on December 1st, 2009.
Photo credit: Fox Home Video

To say that the driving creative force of “Battle of the Smithsonian” was “more is better” would be an understatement. Writers Thomas Lennon & Robert Ben Garant don’t actually write jokes as much as they pile character on top of character. There’s a clear effort to overwhelm the audience as much as entertain them, a feeling amplified in 1080p with a booming DTS audio track. Even the one-joke scenes like Einstein bobbleheads who sing “That’s The Way We Like It” or Cupids with the voices of the Jonas Brothers feel SO desperately manic, but never actually that funny. Imagine a hyperactive child running through the entire Smithsonian as quickly as possible and you’ll get what they were going for with “Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian”.

Of course, if you throw enough material at the wall, a few things have to stick. There’s a sequence with paintings and photos that come to life that’s inventive (if not a direct Looney Tunes rip-off), a hilarious exchange between Jonah Hill and Stiller, and Amy Adams is her typically charming self. The problem with such ADD writing is that when something does click, it’s only a matter of seconds before the film has moved on to something ineffective. And Stiller gives one of the dullest performances of his career. He takes his straight man role to the extreme, coming off completely uninspired.

The film is mediocre, but the Blu-Ray release is packed to the brim with special features and includes, like a lot of family features nowadays, both standard and HD versions of the film (as well as a digital copy). Over two hours of special features are divided into a Fox-standard series of mini-featurettes. I’ll never understand the goal behind featurettes that run under ten minutes when they could just be merged into one longer, behind-the-scenes documentary, but it does fit the quantity over quality aesthetic of the film.

“Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian” includes a gag reel, 12 deleted scenes (including an alternate ending), “Curators of Comedy,” “Museum Scavenger Hunt” game, “Phinding Pharaoh,” “Cherub Bootcamp,” “Historical Confessions: Famous Last Words,” “Museum Magic: Entering the World of the Photograph,” “Cavemen Conversations: Survival of the Wittiest,” and audio commentaries (including an amusing one with writers and “Reno 911!” stars Garant and Lennon).
 

‘Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian’ is released by Fox Home Video and stars Ben Stiller, Amy Adams, Owen Wilson, Hank Azaria, Christopher Guest, Bill Hader and Robin Williams. It was written by Robert Ben Garant & Thomas Lennon and directed by Shawn Levy. It was released on Blu-Ray and DVD on December 1st, 2009.

HollywoodChicago.com content director Brian Tallerico

By BRIAN TALLERICO
Content Director
HollywoodChicago.com
brian@hollywoodchicago.com


   

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