Amy Edwards Night At The Museum was a great movie. The idea was genuine and it was a pleasure to discover all the great characters in human history coming back to life and transform the New York Museum of Natural History into a very big mess.But this sequel lost a lot of its magic mostly because of a bad written plot. The scriptwriters probably thought that moving the story into the biggest museum in the world and adding dozens of new characters would keep us entertained. But you need much more to achieve it. From the beginning. Larry, who we left as an ordinary man, now is a powerful and tyrannic CEO who pushes his staff to cancel their family place to make business. He's also manipulating his lamp like Bruce Lee. Why did they do that? Why not just keeping Larry as a continued night guard having fun at each shift when the museum came alive? Thankfully there are some characters who are really enjoyable to see like the lovely Amy Adams, who stars as Amelia Earhart, the first woman who crossed the Atlantic Ocean with her plane. She really steals the show throughout the movie. The other one is the villain, Kahmunrah, played by Hank Azaria, the evil twin brother of Ahkmenrah who wants to steal the tablet in order to rule the World. Azaria, who also voice the Thinker and President Lincoln, is really showing his huge talent as a comedian. Anyway I'm deceived to not see Robin Williams as much as I did in the first movie. It would have been great to see him throughout the entire movie instead of some scenes there and there.In brief, this movie is not as good as the first one but it's still worth to watch in Family.

oragex I don't understand the rating both here and on Rotten Tomatoes. Can't see how such great acting can get underrated.This movie it's above all about characters. It does not have much action, so perhaps the public who are all about special effects will not be served.What this movie has, and what it's more and more hard to find in theaters these days, is magnificent acting and lots of good humorous scenes. Not at all a typical diluted blockbuster production.How do people rate poorly this movie who made almost half a billion at box office? The third movie of the series is a weak production, yet it has better ratting.. I don't get it. The Battle of the Smithsonian is full of - for once - enjoyable moments.

jrlane74 Well i must say, this is definitely another Ben Stiller type film, his characters are also the same.... He always seems with little or no confidence when he plays his roles, almost to the point to where it seems that forgets his lines. This movie is pretty decent though, the other characters really assist on the shortcomings of Stiller, the parts i have trouble believing is the end where they fly off from the national mall in D.C. to the empty streets of NYC.... i happen to know that there is usually a ton of security on the grounds of the National Mall of DC. the plane lands in NYC and sits there for a good few minutes before taking off again all the while there are no passing cars or any kind of traffic.... Also wasn't the sun going to rise shortly after Amelia Earhardt left back for DC. wouldn't her plane crash as the sun rose? or was the point that she would disappear? Overall i think it was a good film i just got a little nit picky near the end of it.....

MaximumMadness The best way to describe the film "Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian" is to tell the truth. It's a bad film. It's under-written. It's over-reliant on CGI. It has a multitude of visual and pop-culture references that fall flat and felt dated even at the time of it's 2009 release. Characters are under-developed. But all that being said... it's still not a "Bad" movie in terms of entertainment value or acting. Somehow, despite feeling like it was rushed through production and released just to make a profit off of the popular first film, it's darned fun to watch.From the same creative team as the original (including director Shawn Levy and writers Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant), this sequel also includes the return of many core cast members, including Ben Stiller, Robin Williams, Owen Wilson and Steve Coogan.Picking up a few years after the first film. Larry Daley (Stiller) has unfortunately quit his job as the night watchman at the Museum of Natural History in order to pursue his original dream of being an inventor. He now heads his own company, which has made a killing selling goofy product on infomercials. One day, returning to visit the museum at night, he learns that many of the exhibits are being replaced by modern, computerized, interactive holograms, and that the original exhibits are being transported to the Smithsonian archives. This saddens Larry.However, after being transported, it turns out that Dexter the monkey had stolen the magical Egyptian tablet that is able to animate the exhibits, causing everything to come alive in the Smithsonian museum, including the evil Kahmunrah (Hank Azaria), brother of the first film's Akhmenrah. Kahmunrah plans on using the tablet to open a portal to the underworld to release an ancient army and conquer the world. Larry is forced to break into the Smithsonian and team up with a newly animated Amelia Earhard (Amy Adams) to stop them. He also begins to fall for Amelia, despite the fact that she's an animated mannequin.First off, I will explain what I felt didn't work in the film. The big problem I had was that the movie felt like it was too short and under-developed. Larry, our hero, doesn't grow over the film. This is simply another adventure he gets into. And the events of the film transpire in a single night, as opposed to the several in the original film, which made it feel oddly less epic and less compelling. It just seemed too abbreviated. Many jokes also fall flat, and the direction is less than inspired.However, the films saving grace are the actors, and they manage to elevate the film on the whole to greatly entertaining bounds, even though it's still a bit of a mess. Stiller and the returning cast do a fantastic job. They are very fun to watch. Azaria as the new villain is at times a little over-the-top, but sets up for a lot of great jokes.There is also a good sense of adventure, and new ideas are played with (including scenes where characters are now able to enter paintings and photographs, which sets up for some nice, goofy scenes), and the action is well-directed.But the saving grace of the film is definitely new cast member Amy Adams. I've been noticing her more and more lately, after turning in fine performances in films like "Sunshine Cleaning", "Enchanted", "The Fighter" and "The Muppets." And she's becoming one of my favorite actresses working today. Here, she is the shining star, making Amelia the heart of the movie. She's spunky, fun, gorgeous and will completely melt the heart of everyone, man, woman or child, who sees the film. She alone gave the film a few more points, and her romance with Larry is a lot of fun to watch.There are also some really great uses of CGI effects to broaden the scope, and the score by Alan Silvestri also helps a lot."Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian" is not the most well-written or well-directed film. But likable characters and great performances (notably Amy Adams fantastic role) elevate it to a slightly underwhelming but still very enjoyable 6 out of 10. I saw it on cable, and would say it's well worth renting.