Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb

With all due respect...

In this installment, Larry Daley (Ben Stiller) finds himself trying to save the living museum exhibits from not remaining still forever, when the magic tablet that allows them to move starts to decay. They must go to visit Ahkmenrah's (Rami Malek) father, who is housed at a British Museum, and holds the secrets to the tablet's magic. While dealing with the problems at the museum, Larry must also try to understand the changes his son is going through as he grows older.

So, this is a tricky review, being so close to the death of a man I held in the highest regard. I haven't agreed with every cinematic choice he has done; but, the gems that he produced have lived on in my heart and guided me through my life. I assure you that what you are going to read here is not going to be effected by Robin's death very much, I will mention a few things, but my overall opinion of this movie remains. Now that we got that out of the way, on with the review.

There is a lot of bad to say about this movie, but at the same time a great amount of good that redeems this movie into a completely neutral film. Some of the comedic points hit the nail right on the head, and they even managed to leave a fair amount of those points out of the trailers. One point in particular had me rolling on the ground laughing, but that point should remain a surprise. I could definitely do without the side storyline with Larry and his son, it seemed forced, and could have been completely cut out of the picture. There were a fair amount of recycled jokes from the first two movies, where I guess the makers of this film were thinking along the lines of "if it ain't broke don't fix it." The biggest problem I have with this movie is that the thing that gave the original film so much of the limited charm it had, was that it was basically a walk through history in a comedic effect. Here, we have them trying to add even more made up theology to a series that already had a truck load of history to dive into. What is worse is that they didn't go through much of the history (or fables) in England. They picked the most basic thing about English history/fables (Lancelot had the hots for Guinevere)  and beat that horse into the ground until it was a puddle of blood and bone. I will give them credit on doing a bit (when so many films choose to leave that part out of Arthur's tales), but it was basically mentioned every time Lancelot was on screen, and I wanted some more history. Bring in Jack the Ripper cutting things, some King obsessed with beheading (who also happens to be a serial monogamist), or even a damn William Wallace character (I know he is Scottish). Don't beat me over the head with the most famous knight of the round table pining over a quest. Aside from that, the new caveman was endearing enough, and Marenkahre (the Egyptian Pharaoh father) had some pretty great jokes.

A major problem I had with the movie was with the visuals. It seems like they are using the same visual effects team from the first movie, and they haven't learned anything new. The statues look even more fake than one would expect in a movie riddled with CGI. I will give them that they seemed to have their shit together within the first ten minutes of the film, then something happened when they went to England, and everyone must have gotten lazy. The only other thing that struck me as weird was the amount of time they spent on Robin when he was in danger, or clinging to life (with respects). I don't know if it was just me looking into to it too much, but it did seem like they lingered on a couple of key moments to shamelessly tug on some heart strings.

The acting in this was where most of my trouble came from. Everyone just seemed so tired. Like the collective cast all took some Zanax before every shot. The only people that seemed to say "no" to the downer party were Luke Wilson, Steve Coogan, and Dan Stevens. I could say the same for Rebel Wilson, but she seemed to play the same character I have seen before.The worst culprit of underacting was the headliner, Ben Stiller. He just had this air of being above all this, like "why the hell am I making this movie into a trilogy?" The one who seemed to save a couple of moments during this sad train was Dan Stevens. He brought some fresh unfamiliar energy to the proceedings, and seemed to not let the participating cast's mood get in his way of having some fun.

Final Verdict: Netflix It A good movie for one of those lazy days, but nothing to rush out for. I feel like most people who plan to see this already have their mind made up, and usually I would try to stop you; but, this time I will just let my rating speak for itself.