Night At The Musem: Battle of the Smithsonian — A FilmCritic Review
Director: Shawn Levy
Producers: Shawn Levy, Chris Columbus, Michael Barnathan
Screenwriters: Robert Ben Garant, Thomas Lennon
Actors: Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Amy Adams, Hank Azaria, Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan, Bill Hader and Christopher Guest
MPAA Rating: PG
Film Critic Rating = 2 out of 5 Stars
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…..
Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian is like an overstuffed sausage. There is so much going on here, presented in such uninspired empty-calorie servings, that you grow bloated on the unending eye candy. If movies are capable of being enjoyed in disconnected dribs and drabs, this would be said concept’s poster child. For every element it gets right (the Lincoln Memorial comes to life, an angry giant squid), there are things that just don’t work (Azaria’s Boris Karloff by way of Michael Palin’s Pontius Pilate accent, Adams’ Dead End Kids jargon). Let’s face it — any movie with the sexless Jonas Brothers as annoying singing cherubs is either the height of satire, or the low point of public pandering.
Read the full BILL GIBRON review of this movie at FilmCritic.com.
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Copyright © 2009
dont see it!! BAD ICKY POO MOVIE!! really guys, this was a bad one and I see a lot.
Darcy
“icky poo”?? Is that a new professional reviewer’s term I should make note of?
Yes Summer, that is the new lingo. Other terms include “stink pot”, “yucky mucky”, and the new “That smells worse than a skunk’s hamper”.
Thanks for the warning Darcy, I was scheduled to see it on Monday.
hehe,
Well two thumps up was taken. I got to come up with something.
Darcy
Hey,
The monkey needed a paycheck.
Tim
TIm, that’s not a very nice way to talk about Ben Stiller.
lol at Gary.
Jenny
I told Darcy for bad movies she should do a face palm, and good ones a number of woots.
I could not even stand the first one. I’m definitely going to pass this one up.
“Let’s face it — any movie with the sexless Jonas Brothers as annoying singing cherubs is either the height of satire, or the low point of public pandering.” haha
Got dragged to it anyway.
The Jonas brother’s as well as the unflattering and stereotypical portrayal of the Tuskegee Airmen was just insulting. It would have been nice if the T.R. in the Smithsonian had some sort of link to the New York T.R.
I did enjoy Amy Adams in the her role. Hank Azaria wasn’t quite a zero the hut, but he was in the neighborhood.
About 10-15 minutes of editing could have turned this into a decent movie.