I Guess I Don't Want To Spend Another Night at the Museum
Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian was sort of fun. At least a little. Sadly, the best part was the Ice Age 3 trailer, and since that only had one good moment in it the whole experience was more of an opportunity to rest my sketching hand for a couple of hours. It would have been nice to rest my hand AND see an awesome movie, but that was not meant to be.
In the original Night at the Museum we had interesting arcs for several characters, a fascinating little puzzle to solve, a family crisis, and two romances. We also had "cameos" from historical figures and museum exhibits, and some fun action.
In this installment we have lots of those cameos and more action, but there are no character arcs to speak of and the romance is more of a tragedy. In short, the filmmakers took all the neat elements that make for great trailers and crafted a film out of them. The movie has no heart. It's funny in spots, and I'm sure my kids will enjoy it when I bring it home on video, but it's going to sink like a rock on my summer rankings -- a death knell to be feared by movie studios worldwide, I assure you.
My rankings this summer stand as follows:
1. Star Trek
2. Terminator: Salvation
3. Angels & Demons
4. Night at The Museum 2
5.
6. Wolverine.
I hope to be able to see Up on Friday, perhaps at the first matinee of the day, but I have a LOT of work to do between now and then. I fully expect Pixar to again push everybody else down a notch, including Star Trek. If high expectations weaken a film, Up is coming into the fray with a blindfold and one hand tied behind its back.