Tuesday, May 26, 2009

Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

Movie: Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian
Like/Don't Like: Pretty entertaining

This should have been named Night at the Improve. There was a whole lot of ad-libbing going on and I have to say, it was pretty funny.

You know exactly what you're getting with this movie, and that's the appeal. You know that there will be silly hijinks and zany characters and lots of shtick. And who doesn't love shtick?

Ben Stiller is once again called up to save a museum, this time from an evil pharaoh (played by Hank Azaria - who STOLE the show). It took all of 5 minutes to set the plot in motion, thus maximizing the amount of screen time to fill up with all that shtick. I shouldn't actually say plot because there wasn't one. There was a lot of metaphorical screaming of "Come to the Smithsonian! It's AWESOME!" But I didn't mind that too much because it actually does look awesome.

A couple of things I was grateful for: 1.) There was less of Robin Williams than in the first movie, 2.) There was less of that monkey than in the first one (I hate monkeys in movies. HATE.) 3.) It was captivating enough for the kids in the audience that they all sat through it without causing a ruckus. The theater was packed, mostly with kids, and they were great through the whole thing. I wanted to high-five them all as we walked out.

3 comments:

Valerie said...

I also hate monkeys in movies. Actually, let's just go ahead and say I hate monkeys, period. But ESPECIALLY in movies. I really liked the first one, but for the stupid monkey.
Ugh. Monkeys.

Amanda said...

Hmm...I'm so torn now. I had absolutely no intention of watching this money. Not in the theater, not On Demand, and not from the library. I do trust your judgement with movies, so I'm really confused. I really didn't like the first one, mostly due to Robin Williams and the monkey...oh, I don't know. I'm still not going to pay a babysitter to go see it, but maybe I'll give it a shot On Demand.

Rach said...

I trust your judgement when it comes to movies. And the Smithsonian is awesome. So I can imagine the fun they had making everything there come to life. Why is it that Robin Williams is unable to just be normal? I avoid movies in which he has a big role. The monkeys actually don't bother me, if they are doing monkey stuff, like hanging in trees and picking lice off their buddies. But monkeys doing slapstick is a little too obvious, which to me means, LAME. We'll be netflixing this one.