Night at the Museum: Battle to Not Pay

I had a co-worker recently confess to me that he and his wife knowingly attended Hannah Montana: The Movie. This gentleman is well past his prime (Matthew knows him very well) and I wonder if he and his wife should be attending these types of movies alone in a public theater. I have to admit that I posed the same question to myself before deciding to attend Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. There were several reasons I could justify attending the film in a public theater, the first reason being that my wife and I snuck into the movie after attending an earlier movie for which we paid a reduced rate (Thanks, Entertainment Book!) and ate free popcorn (Thanks, Dominoes coupon!). Another good reason to attend this movie is because it is written by Robert Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon of Reno 911 fame.

As you may remember, the first film in the Museum series was a big hit and probably increased museum attendance among willing children by around one percent. Although the original film was a children’s movie, filled with a lot of childhood imagination, it played better to an adult audience since I doubt most children would get overly excited about a Q&A session with Teddy Roosevelt or a slide show presentation from Lewis and Clark (and Sacajawea).

You probably also remember that the first film starred Ben Stiller as himself under a different character name. As you know from this blog I have seen a lot of Ben Stiller movies and my opinion of his acting chops has not changed. He is always the exact same character with the same mannerisms and reactions to similar situations. Well, Ben Stiller was also in the second Museum film and he will not be winning an Oscar for his performance. I have a sneaky feeling that Ben Stiller learned his acting skills from a seminar at the airport where the two chapters in the take home binder were “know your lines” and “arrive on time.”

The good news about this Museum installment is that it is pleasantly funny, it moves along quickly and the actors cast around Ben Stiller give good performances. Despite low expectations I really enjoyed this film.

I thought the best part of this film was the performance by Hank Azaria. I am a huge fan of The Simpsons so I already like Hank Azaria and he did not let me down with his funny portrayals of Kahmunrah (evil brother of Ahkmenrah from the first Museum film), Abe Lincoln (voice only) and Rodin’s The Thinker (voice only). The only problem I had with the evil Kahmunrah character was that he seemed to be aware of the other characters. How is that possible?

To further explain that question I should probably reveal some of the plot. The exhibits at the Museum of Natural History are being shipped to the Smithsonian for storage and one of the exhibits steals the tablet of Ahkmenrah which brings everything to life. When the exhibits arrive at the Smithsonian the tablet brings everything to life and mayhem, friendship, and sight gags ensue. So, what that means to me is that the exhibits at the Smithsonian had not previously come to life.

When Kahmunrah comes to life he seems to know about all of the exhibits in the museum and even knows details of the exploits of his fellow bad guys Al Capone, Ivan the Terrible, and Napoleon Bonaparte. Since Kahmunrah is 2000 years old I am fairly certain he would not know anything about Capone, Muhammad Ali or General Custer.

Hank Azaria has most of the funny moments in the film; the bit with Darth Vader (as splashed across all of the previews) is good, there is a funny moment with Oscar the Grouch and the line by The Thinker…”I’m thinking, I’m thinking, I’m thinking” is smartly written.

One other oddity that occurs with the Kahmunrah character is that when he calls up his army from the underworld (the underworld is just behind a door to nowhere exhibit apparently) he gets a small battalion of white guys with bird heads. At first I was OK with this, maybe the food in the underworld is not that prevalent so white guys had to evolve in order to properly enjoy and digest small pebbles and grains. But then I started wondering why would they only evolve in the area of the head? About the time I let that thought go the underworld-bird head-white guys got scared in the climatic final battle sequence by giant concrete Abe Lincoln and retreated back into the underworld.

Now, this posed a problem for me. The bird headed white guy soldiers came from the underworld, basically they came from the land of the un-dead. So, after thousands of years of eating chat and marching in endless formation drills they made it to the land of the living and they got so scared of fighting Abe Lincoln that they decided to go back to the underworld…what? How do you think the conversation went when they got back?

“Hey Parakeet Perry, how did it go up there?”
“Well, we were really excited and we blasted through the door and everything was so bright and the air was so fresh and I could smell apple pie - it was wonderful.”
“So, what happened?”
“Well, we were in formation and we had our swords ready but then this tall guy surprised us and we ran back through the door.”
“Why did you run back through the door? Why didn’t you just hide or wait until he left?”
“Honestly, everything just happened so fast and I saw Blue Jay Bill and Cardinal Chris run through the door and I just followed them.”
“Oh well, we’re glad to have you back safely. You did miss two floggings which will need to be made up and I need you to carry that boulder for the next 500 years.”
“There is no place like home.”

Finally, I have to mention that in my continuing quest to have all of this summer’s movies cross into each other, I was really hoping that Napoleon would make a side trip to a water park in San Dimas or ask Ben Stiller if he knew Bill S. Preston, Esquire or Theodore Logan (“Put them in the Iron Maiden.” “Iron Maiden? Excellent!”).

So, to wrap this one up, let it be told throughout history that even the armies of the underworld don’t want to mess with Honest Abe.

Warren