Film

What I Believed in “Night At the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian”

I wasn't a huge fan of the original Night at the Museum – I thought it was a cute, fun movie, that's about it.  We went to see the sequel in IMAX, and while the action and special effects were great, there were times where the movie's sheer ignorance of reality interfered with the enjoyment of the movie. 

Here is what I CAN wrap my head around:

  • A magical ancient Egyptian tablet bringing museum pieces to life
  • An ancient Egyptian doorway to the underworld that releases evil spirits

Yes, those two far-out things I can understand. What I CAN'T understand is:

  • What the heck is going to happen come the morning when the Smithsonian workers show up and find the entire front of the building smashed?
  • At the end of the movie, Larry looks at his watch while standing in Washington D.C. and says "only an hour to sunrise" but then has Amelia Earhart fly them to New York City… in a prop plane… and the sun still hasn't risen yet when they land 
  • After Amelia drops off Larry and the other exhibits, she takes off to fly back to D.C., which would all have to happen before sunrise since otherwise, she'd be crashing (not to mention the fact that the sun is visible earlier in NYC than in Washington and in the air in a plane than on the ground)
  • That the Washington Mall would be so empty of people and government security that a 40-foot tall walking Abraham Lincoln wouldn't attract a little attention
  • That a major street in NYC would be empty enough to land a plane at any time of night
  • That the tablet apparently has a MASSIVE working radius.  They take it from the art museum to the main Smithonian building to the Air & Space museum and to the Lincoln Memorial, while one of the characters is at the White House.   This is a distance of a little over a mile, just from the Smithsonian to the Lincoln memorial.   If this is how it worked, shouldn't all the museums within about a 1.5 mile radius in Manhattan start coming to life in the first film?

Here's the problem – obviously  you need to suspend some belief when it comes to a movie like this, and I'm more than willing to go along with the idea that an Egyptian tablet has some power to bring museum piece to life (as odd of a power as that is…).  I'm not that cynical.  However, when they start getting sloppy with things like "an hour to sunrise" and then they fly to NYC in a prop plane and it is still dark out… then I start questioning everything, and I end up asking questions that are way too logical, like "what's the working radius of the tablet?" 

What ends up happening is that these stupid little mistakes in the story become downright distracting and ends up taking away a lot of the magic from an otherwise enjoyable fun little movie with a lot of action.