Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian – Review

Say what you want about the first Night at the Museum, but I found it both humorous and a fairly creative way to do a little superficial education for the younger crowd. The writing team of Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon continue this style while also adding a few more subtle laughs for older audiences in Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian.

The cast, from the onset, appears like the producers wanted a hit regardless of the actual plot. Comedians Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Owen Wilson, and Steve Coogan reprise their previous roles while joined by Hank Azaria, Christopher Guest, and Bill Hader. They each get their own little spots to do what they do best. Despite the overwhelming cast, I have to give it to Amy Adams; she steals the show as the scarlet-haired Amelia Earhart.

At least that was up until the story takes them into the Smithsonian’s Museum of Art. The art they chose to come to life couldn’t be any better, with a famous photo being an important part to the story. The incorporation of the museum was substantially more in-depth in comparison to the first one, while not being too gimmicky with the fact that the entire museum comes to life, only focusing on a few areas. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian has a lot of features of a time-traveling movie without the pesky Space-Time Continuum interfering.

On the down side, one of my bigger complaints is the lack of development in Custer (Hader) for the majority of the movie. He does a good job of portraying Custer, but there are a few scenes which feel almost forced, with no real progression of the story line. Also, the carried-over characters from the first movie to the second one that serve no purpose are a little out-of-place and feel like random breaks, but the overall pacing of this movie has improved vastly over the first Night at the Museum. Two glaring flaws come at the end of the movie, but the fun from the rest of the film let me suspend the disbelief for the few minutes remaining.

Overall, I thought the movie was an improvement over the first. Pacing, plot, and story depth were a lot more even and developed, while keeping the fun, museum-loving nerd in all of us entertained for 105 minutes.

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