Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
Despite my dislike for Ben Stiller, the first Night at the Museum movie was surprisingly enjoyable. Maybe it’s because of the museum/history geek inside me or just that there’s so much going on that I can pretend Ben Stiller isn’t really there~ Fast forward to a second Museum movie, this time the setting is mainly at the Smithsonian in DC. I didn’t quite enjoy it this time around because the whole plot seems completely forced, everything happens because they need to make a sequel! I know I know, it’s a comedy with fantasy elements, why does it matter if it doesn’t make any sense at all? I dunno, I guess I thought even in some unbelievable situation, they need to make you believe in the story. A coherent plot would keep audience from leaving the incredible world the storyteller trying to create.
Okay, so what’s wrong with the movie? well first of all, at the beginning they showed and make you believe that the whole museum of nature history is packing up everything to move to permanent storage and replaced with interactive exhibits. Highly unlikely but whatever. And then they tell you that certain signature pieces would remain in the museum, including the Egyptian tablet that animated them. Okay, so fine. Then they showed the shipping container leave for DC and then Ben Stiller get a call from miniature cowboy saying that the monkey stole the tablet and they are now being attacked by the evil brother of the Pharaoh in Smithsonian. How does he get a wired phone working in a enclosed shipping container is beyond me, and let’s not mention how he know the phone number! And it also looks like instead most of the collection in the museum is shipped to the Smithsonian, from what I can see, there’s only a handful of them that are in the container. So all of the sudden it’s only a small portion of the collection got shipped out, unlike what they said and made you believe in the beginning. It’s a plot hole that can be fix easily if only they change the beginning and not imply the whole museum collection is moving!
Then there’s the zone of effect for the tablet. So let me get this straight: it gives life to the museum pieces after sun down (and they will stay that way even after the tablet is in another location), when the sun rises if the museum pieces is outside of the museum it will turn to dust. The zone of effect is measured by museum, one building at a time, even if all the museums of Smithsonian are linked together underground. And in order to animate the museum pieces, the tablet need to be physical move to that particular museum building. You see, the laws of this particular film universe keep on bending and twisting for the plot and being inconsistent.
The plot itself, aside from all the holes, is quite boring. Luckily they have a great cast that really shine. Amy Adams as Amelia Earhart is fantastic. She just nails the characteristic of someone that is quirky and out of this world and has a bit of innocence of the past age. Granted she has a lot of practice with this type of character, like in Enchanted and Doubt, but still she is just amazing! Then there’s the evil Pharaoh brother played by Hank Azaria. He’s completely hilarious! His character is so dramatic that he is the perfect type of evil but funny as hell villain, like Dr Evil~ The new thing got animated such as paintings and modern art are way too fun to witness. And then there’s the space monkey! he’s way cuter than his jungle brother monkey! the subtitled conversation between the two is hilarious!
Then comes the WTF ending of an open late museum where the museum pieces showed themselves to the public and pretend to be animatronics. Please don’t get me started with the original museum closing time and the various sunset time of New York during the seasons to point out how ridiculus the concept is.
Yes I know, it’s just a movie! but I think for something that cost me $12.50, I expect a good movie with a limited amount of plot holes, not giant craters!
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