Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb signals the movie’s change of setting in the most predictable way possible. It serves up a montage of aerial shots of London and accompanies these random sights with the Clash’s London Calling. This small sequence epitomizes what the movie ultimately gives audiences: something that gets the job done, but is far from inspired. The film, with its overqualified cast, is more or less watchable all throughout its runtime. But it just doesn’t offer audiences anything memorable or noteworthy.
The film catches up once again with Larry Daley (Ben Stiller), night watchman at New York’s Natural History Museum, where the exhibits come to life when the sun goes down thanks to the magic of an ancient Egyptian tablet. But the magic in the tablet is fading. Larry takes the tablet to the British Museum in London, where he hopes to find Merenkahre, the great pharaoh who bears the secret to repairing the tablet. Larry, accompanied by the mummy Ahkmenrah (Remi Malek), Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams), and some other of the museum’s exhibits, sneak around the British Museum at night, where the exhibits are coming to life for the very first time.
The movie only really seems to exist to replicate the beats of the first movie. The script appears to have been constructed in reverse, with the big set pieces put into place first, the connective tissue of the story almost an afterthought. It is more important to the film that the characters end up being chased by a dinosaur skeleton than it is to provide a compelling narrative. There are a lot of characters in here, but few of them actually get anything to do. Teddy Roosevelt tags along mainly to deliver exposition. Attila the Hun does nothing of importance throughout the whole. Miniature characters Jed and Octavius seem to be in the movie to be a hindrance more than anything else.
The movie just doesn’t seem to care very much about assembling anything substantial. The previous two movies were not particularly well constructed either, but they at least offered coherent stories that built to something. This movie seems to treat story as a necessary evil. It feels indifferent about who these characters are and what they’re going through. All that matters is that they are part of this franchise, and the filmmakers are obligated to have them in here as well.
The lack of genuine enthusiasm is felt somewhat in the cast as well. Ben Stiller barely musters up the manic intensity that tends to fuel his best comedic performances. He’s still pretty funny in this mode, but it really feels like he’s holding something back. Robin Williams is given somewhat of an expanded role as Teddy Roosevelt, but the film doesn’t really let him loose either. Owen Wilson and Steve Coogan aim for low hanging fruit. Newcomers to the franchise Dan Stevens and Rebel Wilson are really the only ones putting visible effort in their roles.
Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb gets appealingly weird in the back, its final moments marked with strange emotionality that’s largely missing from most of the film. It’s far too little too late, the film having already spent so much of its runtime going through the motions of the blockbuster family picture. It didn’t really seem like anybody wanted to go through this for a third time, the filmmakers and the actors alike sleepwalking through the familiar assemblage of Night at the Museum elements. It’s still a watchable little movie, but it does feel pretty disheartening.
My Rating:
