Shawn Levy has no soul. Perhaps put another way, he is one of the few filmmakers working today who lacks the requisite motion picture magic to make his fantastical ideas sing. Now that’s nothing new to anyone who’s seen his hamfisted hackwork in such incoherent remake comedies as Cheaper by the Dozen and The Pink Panther. He’s also the Nachos, Flanders Style of visionaries, unable to bring a lick of wonder to his tedious kid flick Night at the Museum. Now he’s back with another baffling, sure-to-be crowd pleaser, and while Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian has much better effects than the prior outing, the story — and some of the casting — seems geared toward destroying any amount of visual goodwill accrued.
It’s been a few years since Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) worked as a night watchman at the Museum of Natural History in New York. He has since become a highly successful infomercial pitchman. When he learns from the statue of Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams) that most of his favorite exhibits, including the miniatures of cowboy Jedediah Smith (Owen Wilson) and Roman Emperor Octavius (Steve Coogan), are being “decommissioned” and taken to the Federal Archive in DC, he’s sad. A late night phone call from his “friends” has him headed to the nation’s capital and breaking into the Smithsonian. There, he discovers Kahmunrah (Hank Azaria), evil brother of Ahkmenrah (Rami Malek), who wants a fabled golden tablet so he can take over the world. With the help of Gen. Custer (Bill Hader) and Amelia Earhart (Amy Adams), Larry must stop the resurrected despot and save the day.
