I’ll be completely honest and say that I have not seen a single film from the ‘Night at the Museum’ franchise. None of the three installments, starring Ben Stiller as Larry Daley, the night guard at the American Museum of Natural History, who discovers that an ancient mystical tablet brings the exhibits to life. So when I saw the animated film ‘Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again’ on Disney+, I don’t know why I clicked on it but I wanted something different from all the things I’ve been watching lately – heavy, dramatic, or with a language that I don’t know – so I thought it would be nice to see something light, wholesome, and not anything that I needed subtitles for.
Surprisingly, ‘Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again’ was an easy film to follow. Even without having seen the first three movies, I was able to quickly figure out the dynamics and relationships of the characters that were present – Larry, his son Nick, and the exhibits Theodore Roosevelt, Octavius, Jebediah, Sacagawea, Laaa, Joan of Arc, and a whole bunch of other characters. The frenetic pacing and the animation style really made it feel that this was made for the kids, as a light-hearted for-the-family entertainment type of movie for a weekend movie night.
In this fourth installment of the franchise, Larry is off overseas to take over a new museum and makes a decision to let his son, Nick, take over the job as the night guard. Nick is now in high school but is suffering from the teen angst of not having enough confidence in himself. He wants to try out for the school’s jazz band and ask the girl he likes out but he’s clumsy and doubts himself. So Larry suggests he takes his old job as it has done wonders for him and his self-esteem.
All seems to be going well except Kahmunrah, an exhibit with ambitions for world domination, manages to escape from the basement (due to Nick’s lapse in judgment) and begins to wreak havoc in and around the museum with the goal to take over the world.
There’s very little plot and character work happening in this film as it really is just Nick and the other exhibits trying to stop Kahmunra (and his partner Seth) from taking over the world. It’s one gag after the other with shallow attempts at pushing for Nick to get more courageous.
But there’s no real depth to the story, no real internal struggle that needs to be solved for Nick or any of the characters. It’s loud and fast-paced and full of spills and thrills that are meant to keep the kids watching engaged until the end of the movie. Maybe, hopefully, it will get them interested to go to a museum but with no real big spectacle or memorable moment or particularly heart-warming scene, ‘Night at the Museum: Kahmunra Rises Again’ doesn’t really pop out or stand out from anything else Disney+ has to offer.
Without even the familiar voices of the stars of the live-action films like Ben Stiller or Owen Wilson, there’s very little to attach new viewers to this installment. With all the amazing films and tv shows one can watch on Disney+, this will have a hard time finding its place in the catalog. The platform is going to have to work harder to make its IPs like ‘Night at the Museum’ stand out from Disney+’s connection to Star Wars, the MCU, or their animated films and collaboration with Pixar. There’s just too much in there for something like this to find its audience.
My Rating:
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Night at the Museum: Kahmunrah Rises Again is now streaming on Disney+.
