Night At The Museum 2 Review

"This is like the first movie times a thousand." That's what leading player Bill Hader has to say about the sequel to the phenomenally successful Night At The Museum. A quick look at the production notes would seem to bear out the Superbad star's assertion. Night At The Museum 2 features more big names, more special effects and a more elaborate storyline. All of which makes it far better than the first outing, right? Well, possibly.

Shawn Levy's sequel finds erstwhile nightwatchman Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) in new surroundings. An infomercial salesman with a knack for flogging the sort of products even Ronco might think twice about marketing, Larry seems to be enjoying his newfound wealth and responsibility. But - would you believe it? - he misses his days skulking around the American Museum Of Natural History. And after he discovers that the all-walking, all-talking exhibits are being relocated to Washington DC's Smithsonian Institute, it's not long before he too is heading south, this time to help his peculiar friends do battle with Kahmunrah (Hank Azaria), a reanimated Egyptian ruler bent on awakening his supernatural army and conquering the world.

Like most modern sequels, Levy's picture is unwilling to alter the formula too dramatically. So all the most popular elements of part one return (Ricky Gervais' fusty curator, Robin Williams' Teddy Roosevelt, the Labrador-esque dinosaur skeleton) while those performers who've been added to the mix (Azaria, Christopher Guest as Ivan The Terrible) are well suited to the larger-than-life acting style that charactersised the original. As for radical alterations, these extend to Stiller being beaten up by not one but two capuchin monkeys, and the introduction of celebrated flygirl Amelia Earhart (Enchanted's Amy Adams) as Larry's potential love interest.