Review-Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

Night at the Museum was a huge hit in 2006 and it was a fun movie. It had all the right elements, comedy, action, a great cast and a touch of romance. And with a Worldwide box-office of over 570 million dollars, a sequel was always going to happen.

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian starts with Ben Stiller's character, Larry Davey, advertising his highly successful new brand of 'luminous' torch on a t.v show with George Foreman. Because you see Larry is now a successful inventor.But then Larry, upon a re-visit to his beloved Museum where he once worked, finds out that his favourite exhibits that come alive at night are being moved into storage at the Smithsonian Museum, away from the Egyptian tab that enables them to live their lives at night time.

So Larry disappointed by the news, plans to bring them back to the museum with his new found wealth and then try somehow to bring some visitors back to breathe some life into the Museum and try to make it thrive again. Until the news is suddenly made even worse as Jedediah Smith, the miniature Cowboy played by Owen Wilson rings Larry unexpectedly to tell him that one of the monkey's has stolen the magical Egyptian Tab and has brought all the exhibits to life at the Smithsonian Museum and now Kahmunrah played with great comedic timing by Hank Azaria, has unleashed terror among the museum inhabitants and plans to wage war.

So Larry now must infiltrate the huge Smithsonian Museum and bring the tab and the exhibits back to the Museum where they belong with time against him as he must do all this before night fall, before all havoc breaks loose, but of course it isn't going to be that easy, otherwise their wouldn't be any point to the movie.

The movie didn't quite have the charm or magic as the original movie did and their wasn't really that many huge special effect moments considering the grandeur of the Museum. Ben Stiller to me looked bored and wasn't as funny as he was in the first movie, in fact most of the laughs come from the ever reliable Hank Azaria who is hilarious in one act of frustrated anger with Larry. There is also a '300' influenced moment where the miniature figures are unleashing war on the feet of the various soldiers in slow-motion and when we zoom out again into normal view all we see is people jumping around on one foot as they have been attacked by what would feel like nasty little pin pricks.

The rest of the cast do a decent job of what they are given and Ricky Gervais is once again very funny in the tiny appearances that he has.

I was entertained during most of the movie and the kids will love it. An average kids summer Blockbuster. What i want to know is though, when are we going to get that zoolander sequel?