Let's Go Out To The Movies: 'Night At The Museum: Secret of the Tomb' (PG - 20th Century Fox - 1 hr, 38 mins)

Alo Party Peoples.

The Night at the Museum franchise is one of those properties that I feel, in ten or so years when the Nostalgia Wave reaches the 21st' Century, will likely be one of the first things rebooted, and I would be all for it because the series isn't really all that special. The first one is a pretty good family film and has its moments, but it isn't the kind of story that lends itself to serialization. The sequel, Battle of the Smithsonian on the other hand, falls into the usual Would-Be-Franchise Trap of inflating the scope of the first one without any new perspective or interpretation being taken on the concept.

Said concept involves Ben Stiller as a night watchman at the Museum of Natural History in New York. The hook is that a magical Egyptian tablet housed there makes the exhibits come to life at night, and that should clue you into why this series shouldn't be a series, its the kind of idea that only works once before becoming stale. See also, Men in Black, Paranormal Activity, Final Destination, and a lot of other horror properties.

Anyways, the premise of Secret of the Tomb is that the magic bringing the exhibits to life is starting to break down, and that's a problem because it makes them go haywire in front of guests. Each installment of this series moves the action to a different museum, the Natural History museum in the first one, the Smithsonian in DC for the second one, and now the British Museum where the only person that knows how to fix the magic is one of the exhibits. Naturally, shenanigans ensue as the ensemble from the last two films, Stiller, the late Robin Williams as Teddy Roosevelt, Owen Wilson and Steve Coogan as minatures of a frontier cowboy and a Roman soldier respectively, Rami Malek as an Egyptian king, Mizuo Peck as Sacagewea, a Capuchin monkey, and Patrick Gallagher as Atilla the Hun head across the pond with the tablet causing those exhibits start coming to life for the first time.

As you may have guessed from that lineup of characters, the thing this series exists for, or at least what some would find interesting about it, is getting a free-for-all mashup of various parts of history in one place, and figuring out what stuff like dinosaur skeletons, model aircraft, and statues would look life moving around and doing stuff. Unfortunately, they don't do anything with the various personalities on display. Take the cowboy and the Roman, both of their cultures were out on the frontier of Western civilization, and they were both operating to expand it. In the first film that led to conflict, but here they've managed a sort of bromance with eachother. As for the visuals, they do a good job, but nothing that the first one was able to do better.

It also keeps interrupting that mash-up with failed attempts at comedy via awkward dialogue exchanges that are trying to be Monty Python but come off more like bad public access improv. I probably wouldn't be talking about this if it wasn't Robin Williams' last performance, and that aspect of it doesn't really provide much for me to talk about. He isn't especially good or especially bad, he's just sort of okay, exactly like the movie he's acting in.

As a fun distraction for your kids, Secret of the Tomb is nothing special. If your'e a parent with kids to entertain, take them to see Annie or Big Hero 6, or just save yourself some money and rent the first Night at the Museum instead.

Have a nice day.

Greg.B