Night At The Museum 2 (PG)

Alison Rowat's Review

As many a sword and sandals epic complete with wristwatches has shown, Hollywood is not above taking an anything-goes approach to history. Even so, if Amelia Earhart actually flew the Atlantic solo in an outfit as snugly tailored as the one her character wears in Night at the Museum 2, I'll eat the Wright Brothers' hats. And their goggles. Throw in the chocks as well.

Amy Adams plays the intrepid aviatrix in Shawn Levy's follow up to the 2006 picture, and a jolly fine job she does too, both in tearing about in a pair of unfeasibly tight trews and in freshening up the franchise. Ably assisted by another new face, Hank “Voice of The Simpsons” Azaria, Adams adds oodles of pep to what is an otherwise routine sequel.

In the first picture, Larry (Stiller) was a sad, divorced dad who took a job as a night watchman at the museum as a last resort. The sequel finds Larry, emboldened by his experiences in the original movie - among them being counselled by Teddy Roosevelt, foiling a robbery and escaping Attila the Hun - the successful chief of his own gadget-making company.

Being a busy business bee, Larry doesn't get back much to the American Museum of Natural History in New York to see his old (very old) chums. When he does drop by he discovers that the place is being renovated and the exhibits are to be shipped to the Smithsonian in Washington DC.

Also going to the Smithsonian is the ancient Egyptian tablet that brings the exhibits to life, Jumanji-style. While this has been used for innocent good in the past, one very bad hombre lurking at the Smithsonian, the pharoah Kahmunrah (a scene-stealing Hank Azaria), intends to use its power to raise the armies of the undead. Since this will clearly endanger world peace, not to mention play havoc with gift shop sales, Larry is pressed into service again to sort things out.

Setting the sequel in the Smithsonian was a smart move. The 19-museum complex, in addition to charting the progress of humankind from cave to moon landings and beyond, has Ali's gloves, Darth Vader's suit, Custer's jacket and Dorothy's ruby slippers. Chief among the other treasures is Earhart's Lockheed Vega, which is where Adams comes in.

The star of Junebug and Enchanted lifts any picture she graces, nowhere more so than here. Bright as her Titian locks, perky as a piglet in clover, the search for a new Doris Day ends with her.

Adams' portrayal of the record-breaking, stereotype-shattering Earhart as a cross between a ditzy flapper girl and a Girls' Own heroine might make a thoughtful biographer knit their brows, but if it gets young audiences Googling the bold Amelia afterwards then it's all to the good. (On the back of the film's release, the wise old Smithsonian has a special section on its website, www.si.edu, giving further information about the characters and artefacts in the picture.) Its educational elements aside, the Night at the Museum films - a third has been suggested - are standard blockbuster fare, chances for big names such as Owen Wilson, Steve Coogan and Robin Williams to turn up, do what's expected of them, and go home again. There's a lot of such box ticking in Levy's film, especially at the beginning, and as a result the story takes an ice age to get going. The PG audience has come to see Stiller playing fetch with T-Rex, not hear about the finer points of deep storage. When the tectonic plates finally start to move the result makes for a more entertaining and inventive couple of hours than the first caper.

We see the characters in paintings come to life, a Degas dancer bow to Adams and, most impressive of all, Larry entering Alfred Eisenstaedt's photograph of VJ celebrations in Times Square. He even gets to kiss the girl. Equally awesome is finding that his phone works. “Wow, four bars in 1945!” Al Capone and Napoleon roar back to life to aid Hank Azaria's megalomaniac pharoah, Einstein helps solve a riddle, Earhart flies again - there's a lot to prompt a smile.

Apart from those inspired moments, it's back to same old, same old for Levy, a director previously responsible for the awful Pink Panther, and the not much better Cheaper By the Dozen.

Among the characters making a questionable return is Ricky Gervais's museum curator. Gervais, so at ease in Ghost Town, is back to square one here. His verbal to and fro with Ben Stiller, while presumably hilarious on set, creaks like the opening of a sarcophagus.

There are some comebacks that are worth cheering, though. The sight of Ben Stiller being slapped, Three Stooges-style, by two monkeys doesn't look like much fun for Stiller, but it gets one of the biggest laughs in the picture. Not as entertaining as a real night in the Smithsonian, but close.

Paul Greenwood's Review

Another week, another sequel to a film that was few people’s idea of a great time at the movies, but which managed to clean up at the box office, making a return to the well inevitable.

Night at the Museum scored big with audiences a couple of Christmases ago and this second instalment continues the first’s Toy Story riff, whereby the exhibits at New York’s Museum of Natural History come alive at night thanks to some magical doohickey.

The exhibits have been packed up and put into storage for a move to the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC where, for poorly explained reasons, the mystical tablet that grants them life also ends up and Ben Stiller’s security guard turned inventor must retrieve it for reasons they don’t even bother trying to explain.

As the rampant CGI conjures giant octopuses and dinosaur skeletons, weak storytelling combined with some shoddy visual effects will leave you wondering quite what the charm of this series is supposed to be. For a reported budget of $150million, there’s just no excuse for effects this poor.

Thank heavens then for Hank Azaria, who enters the fray as Kahmunrah, an Egyptian pharaoh with a taste for the dramatic and a voice like Boris Karloff. He rounds up various nefarious historical characters from Ivan the Terrible to Al Capone to help him conquer the world, and it’s left to Stiller and his museum buddies to save the day.

It’s probably best to ignore all the sloppy action and concentrate on a fine supporting cast that offers a lot to enjoy. Azaria brings a manic goofiness to his role that elevates proceedings no end and he’s often laugh out loud funny. There’s also a delightful turn from Amy Adams as Amelia Earhart, and she brightens the many scenes she has with a rather subdued Stiller.

Owen Wilson and Steve Coogan as a tiny cowboy and Roman centurion respectively, as well as being saddled with ropey miniaturising effects, are mostly wasted save for a riotous spoof of 300 that sees them hacking and slashing at the toes of the bad guys.

Kids may enjoy the laboured slapstick, but parents are more likely to snooze through it, hopefully waking up in time to see Azaria and Adams, who make Night at the Museum 2 so agreeable that a third entry wouldn’t be entirely unwelcome. And, if nothing else, you’ll probably never get another chance to see Darth Vader share screen time with Sesame Street’s Oscar the Grouch.