Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb
For a franchise built on pratfalls and urinating monkeys, "Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb" exhibits some surprisingly grown-up sensibilities in what appears to be the third and final installment of the series. Indeed, the theme of the film is growing up and moving on, and it's this more relaxed tone that elevates it above the cartoon quality of its frenetic and frivolous predecessors.
Ben Stiller ("Zoolander") returns as Larry Daley, the former Museum of Natural History security guard who is now the museum's Director of Nighttime Operations. Under Larry's guidance, the museum has developed a highly successful night program based on "special effects"-driven lifelike exhibits. The exhibits, of course, are actually alive thanks to a magical Egyptian tablet that animates them when the sun sets. The film opens with Larry seeming very comfortable in his new role, calling the shots and directing the production of a huge black-tie event at the museum, a contrast to his bumbling persona in the first film.
Still, things go sideways when the exhibits go berserk during the party, and it is soon discovered that the magic of the tablet is fading fast. Larry must gather up the usual cast of characters, including Teddy Roosevelt (Robin Williams), Jedediah (Owen Wilson), Octavius (Steve Coogan), and Ahkmenrah (Rami Malek), and travel to the British Museum. There they hope to find Ahkmenrah's father, the pharaoh Merenkahre, played by Ben Kingsley. They must learn the secret of the tablet from Merenkahre in order to restore its magic.
Along for the ride is Larry's son, Nick (Skylar Gisondo), who disagrees with his dad about his plans for the future. Nick wants to take a year off after high school while Larry struggles with letting go and giving his son room to grow. It's a recurring theme threaded throughout the usual CGI hijinks and peril: All of the characters are growing older and facing uncertain futures.
Perhaps most poignant is seeing Robin Williams in his final on-screen role. It's a little upsetting to see Williams as a weary Teddy Roosevelt, resigned that his time has passed. During one scene, a nifty sequence where the characters do battle inside the supernatural geometry of an M.C. Escher painting, Teddy implores Larry to let him sacrifice himself so the quest to restore the tablet can continue. Combined with a bittersweet and uncanny farewell in close-up from Williams near the end of the film, as a viewer it's hard not to feel as if half-healed wounds are being torn open again.
It's not all depressing, of course. The film is long on heart and light on plot, with plenty of jokes and much less of the reliance on ridiculous "Home Alone"-style stunts that dominated the first two films. Stiller, in particular, reins himself in effectively here, eschewing his tendency to sometimes swing for the fences with over-the-top choices and instead proving to be a calming force. Rebel Wilson ("Pitch Perfect" and "Bridesmaids") has a memorable turn as the night guard at the British Museum that provides plenty of silliness but is still far more interesting than mere CGI sight gags. And "X-Men" fans will find a cameo by Hugh Jackman that, for them, may well be worth the price of admission alone.
Overall, "Night of the Museum: Secret of the Tomb" is a solid and tolerable curtain call for the franchise. I can't rate it any higher, however, because even though it is the final chapter of this series, it suffers in a weird way from a case of growing pains. "Night at the Musuem: Secret of the Tomb" is a little like an awkward pre-teen who has decided he's too old to play with toys anymore. There are some entertaining aspects to the film, but they don't quite fit together in a fully realized way.
3 Yaps
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMKk7Dn__-Y?rel=0&w=514&h=289]