zardoz-13 As sequels go, "Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian" proves the exception to the rule. Director Shaun Levy's ambitious as well as imaginative follow-up to "Night at the Museum" tops the original. One of the reason that it surpasses the first film is the casting. Amy Adams is terrific as Amelia Earhart, and she makes an impact on the movie with her presence. Of course, part of this is due to the historical person that she plays. She exerts a charisma that none of the women had in the first film. Neither Carla Gugino nor Kim Raver possessed this charisma. Moreover, neither shared as much screen time with Stiller as Adams does, and this togetherness helps the film. "Battle" picks up the narrative thread not long after the original, but Larry has finally become a success at what he struggled to be before he landed his night security guard gig at the American Museum of Natural History. Now, he is selling his invention with George Foreman. Everything is looking grand for him until he visits the Museum and learns from Dr. McPhee that certain displays are being shipped to the Smithsonian. Suddenly, all Hell breaks loose and Larry has to take off for Washington, D.C. to the mysterious Tablet of Akmenrah. "Battle" is bigger and better than "Night at the Museum" with higher stakes.

FairlyAnonymous Night at the museum: Battle of the Smithsonian was a rather disappointing movie. I had some expectations for it because the movie had some of the promise of the first movie, but with a much much much larger cast than the first and with a lot more cool museum figures. Sadly the movie doesn't take advantage of this. The plot of the movie isn't too sophisticated but neither was the plot of the first movie. The first movie had this charm to it which made it rather enjoyable. The characters in the first were funny, and the whole movie had this nice magical feel to it. Like something out of a kid's book.But the second movie loses that magic. The new characters are slightly interesting but the movie uses some of the same gags from the last movie which is rather annoying. I guess that is the problem with this entire movie. The concept was interesting once, and it could've been interesting twice if done correctly, but this movie doesn't use the concept well and reuses too many old concepts so it feels rather dull. One of the biggest let downs of the movie is the final battle (climax). This is something that is promised to happen (even the title says there will be a battle haha) but it really fails on multiple levels. The movie is set in Smithsonian so there are literally thousands of new figures/characters that should be available for the final battle... but there aren't. *spoiler* The main bad guy summons a dark, evil, Egyptian army that is supposedly powerful enough to conquer the world... and when it is summoned it doesn't even fight! It gets scared off by Abraham Lincoln! How is an army that is powerful enough to conquer the world so easily defeated. A real letdown... All in all the movie wasn't terrible but it wasn't amazing. The plot could've been better, the action could've been better, the characters could've been better... there are a lot of things that would've improved it... but oh well.

MaximumMadness The best way to describe the film "Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian" is to tell the truth. It's a bad film. It's under-written. It's over-reliant on CGI. It has a multitude of visual and pop-culture references that fall flat and felt dated even at the time of it's 2009 release. Characters are under-developed. But all that being said... it's still not a "Bad" movie in terms of entertainment value or acting. Somehow, despite feeling like it was rushed through production and released just to make a profit off of the popular first film, it's darned fun to watch.From the same creative team as the original (including director Shawn Levy and writers Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant), this sequel also includes the return of many core cast members, including Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Owen Wilson and Steve Coogan.Picking up a few years after the first film. Larry Daley (Stiller) has unfortunately quit his job as the night watchman at the Museum of Natural History in order to pursue his original dream of being an inventor. He now heads his own company, which has made a killing selling goofy product on infomercials. One day, returning to visit the museum at night, he learns that many of the exhibits are being replaced by modern, computerized, interactive holograms, and that the original exhibits are being transported to the Smithsonian archives. This saddens Larry.However, after being transported, it turns out that Dexter the monkey had stolen the magical Egyptian tablet that is able to animate the exhibits, causing everything to come alive in the Smithsonian museum, including the evil Kahmunrah (Hank Azaria), brother of the first film's Akhmenrah. Kahmunrah plans on using the tablet to open a portal to the underworld to release an ancient army and conquer the world. Larry is forced to break into the Smithsonian and team up with a newly animated Amelia Earhard (Amy Adams) to stop them. He also begins to fall for Amelia, despite the fact that she's an animated mannequin.First off, I will explain what I felt didn't work in the film. The big problem I had was that the movie felt like it was too short and under-developed. Larry, our hero, doesn't grow over the film. This is simply another adventure he gets into. And the events of the film transpire in a single night, as opposed to the several in the original film, which made it feel oddly less epic and less compelling. It just seemed too abbreviated. Many jokes also fall flat, and the direction is less than inspired.However, the films saving grace are the actors, and they manage to elevate the film on the whole to greatly entertaining bounds, even though it's still a bit of a mess. Stiller and the returning cast do a fantastic job. They are very fun to watch. Azaria as the new villain is at times a little over-the-top, but sets up for a lot of great jokes.There is also a good sense of adventure, and new ideas are played with (including scenes where characters are now able to enter paintings and photographs, which sets up for some nice, goofy scenes), and the action is well-directed.But the saving grace of the film is definitely new cast member Amy Adams. I've been noticing her more and more lately, after turning in fine performances in films like "Sunshine Cleaning", "Enchanted", "The Fighter" and "The Muppets." And she's becoming one of my favorite actresses working today. Here, she is the shining star, making Amelia the heart of the movie. She's spunky, fun, gorgeous and will completely melt the heart of everyone, man, woman or child, who sees the film. She alone gave the film a few more points, and her romance with Larry is a lot of fun to watch.There are also some really great uses of CGI effects to broaden the scope, and the score by Alan Silvestri also helps a lot."Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian" is not the most well-written or well-directed film. But likable characters and great performances (notably Amy Adams fantastic role) elevate it to a slightly underwhelming but still very enjoyable 6 out of 10. I saw it on cable, and would say it's well worth renting.

AyeLewisTheReverified Yes, I know its a fantasy kid's movie and therefore gets a greater degree of leeway when it comes to plot-holes and over the top events. But this.....this......THIS.... was beyond anything you could possibly imagine. Simply the WORST writing I have witnessed for many a moon. The first film had a certain charm. No, it was very far from a masterpiece, but it was somewhat engrossing and humorous for the most part. The sequel, however, was corny, stupid, illogical, absurd, confused, erratic and worst of all, boring.How did the writers of this abomination ever screw it up so bad? Did they become addicted to meth between the first and last film? Were they under instructions to write the worst story possible...............as a joke, (often referred to as the "Wimp Lo" method)?I rarely write film reviews.....but this one was so painful to watch that I felt I had no choice.. Even my 10yr old kid spotted plot holes. Yep.....when a 10yr old starts spotting plot holes, you know the film is in trouble.1/10