NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM 2:BATTLE FOR THE SMITHSONIAN

“NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM 2: BATTLE FOR THE SMITHSONIAN”
(Ben Stiller, Amy Adams, Robin Williams, Hank Azaria & Owen Wilson)

Why would someone that didn’t like the first ‘Night At The Museum’ go see the sequel?
I can answer that in two words – Amy Adams. Plus my wife, for some unexplained reason, wanted to see it.
It isn’t very funny, a handful of chuckles is all you’re going to get; it doesn’t even attempt at being original – it is a carbon copy of the first bland film – With one exception – Amy Adams. Besides being a ‘spark’ as a bubbly Amelia Earhart, I discovered a portion of her anatomy that attracted my eyes. To keep from revealing the chauvinistic pig that dwells not all that deep inside my being, I’ll just say that every time they shot Ms. Adams from behind I found myself enjoying the view. So there you go, guys – if your wife/girlfriend/mistress/chicks you’d like to sleep with but only want to be friends still you keep hanging in there in case they get dumped and you think you might get a shot by being the proverbial shoulder to cry on/ want to go see ‘NATM-2’, I’m letting you know that Amy Adams has a delightful bubble to her bum that will keep your interest up.
For less important matters, such as the simplistic plot; Ben Stiller’s Larry Daley has evolved into an infomercial king who discovers the exhibits that come to life at his old job are being shipped to the Smithsonian for storage. He cleverly makes his way into the archives in time to find Hank Azaria’s Egyptian king on the verge of killing all the new exhibits that came to life the evening before in order to gain possession of the tablet that brings them to life. And when I say ‘cleverly’, I AM being facetious.
I realize common sense doesn’t have to apply to a film of this nature, but when they put Ivan The Terrible, Napoleon Bonaparte & Al Capone in the script & make them all some unknown Egyptian’s ‘henchmen’ – that’s getting a little too ridiculous for me. Why would those 2 infamous leaders ‘follow’ anyone, let alone an unknown ‘king’ who speaks with a lisp. & since Al comes equipped with a machine gun, something tells me HE would be calling the shots, not the guys with swords & spears... They also assume that the audience is too dumb to realize that an ancient Egyptian should not know who Napoleon & Capone are – as well as picking up Owen Wilson’s miniature western character & knowing that he’s a ‘cowboy’.
Like the first film, this is merely a vehicle to have museum exhibits ‘come to life’ & that is supposed to suffice for entertainment. There’s even ANOTHER elongated ‘bitch slap’ scene involving Stiller & 2 monkeys. If you laugh at that, you are much too easily entertained (But the Adam Sandler’s of the world owe you their livelihoods)
The only scenes of substance involve Amy Adams. Bill Hader as George Armstrong Custer provides a couple of the chuckles (“When I yell ‘attack’, we’ll take them by surprise”) but the film’s central character is the unfunny, uninteresting, less than talented Ben Stiller, who shows here that “Tropic Thunder” was an adrenalin rush that inspired a short lived boost from his usual mundane performances.
Unless you have little ones that are entertained by seeing the same thing over & over, I’d say stay out of this museum – you won’t learn or see anything of value.