Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb movie review

A Native American, Theodore Roosevelt, a night guard, Attila the Hun, a monkey, an Egyptian Pharaoh, and the night guard’s teen aged son walk onto a bus…

A couple weeks ago I went to see Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb.  I had only seen bits of the first one so I had an idea of what the series was about. And I also went because I was, in a way, paying my respects to Robin. I did not become a sobbing mess like I thought I would be when it got to the scene where Robin Williams’ Teddy says goodbye to Larry. Not going to lie though, I did get choked up.
Backtracking, it was good to see Dick Van Dyke again (another person from my childhood), though only for a couple minutes.  Mickey Rooney makes an even shorter cameo in his last (?) movie (ah, another one lost in 2014!).  Sir Ben Kingsley makes a regal appearance as the father Pharoah,  and Sir Lancealot is played by Dan Stevens (of Downton Abbey fame)

Ben Stiller returns, making an interesting straight man for a group of somewhat historical misfits.

And this was all preceded by a trailer for the upcoming Peanuts movie (seeing Snoopy fighting the Red Baron has always been one of my childhood’s fondest memories.)

Wow. So many bits of my youth all in one afternoon.

Memorable scenes: The bit with Jedediah and Octavius watching a cat video on YouTube.

Seen in the trailer where Sir Lance and Teddy introduce themselves to each other:

Sir Lancelot: Sir Lancelot, at your service.
Teddy Roosevelt: Theodore Roosevelt, President of the United States of America.
Sir Lancelot: I have no idea what that means.

The bit in the MC Escher work, “Relativity” was very smartly done..

Hugh Jackman.  Was not expecting to see him in the movie. Loved when he broke into his Wolverine pose. Lance asks what is he doing. The woman says he’s doing “his Wolverine thing.”

Teddy saying goodbye.  That gutted me.  Didn’t cry, but…(heavy sigh) yeah.

It went viral on tumblr.

I did expect, and laugh, when Teddy gives Larry one more scare just like he did in the first movie.

One of the reasons why I like these types of movies is that you have people from various different places on the panet, and from different historical eras, all working together. And saying things that you would not expect to hear, like Larry slapping Attila the Hun and telling him “Huns don’t hyperventilate” (another one of my favorite lines)

Some extra stuff

I came across some videos playlisted on NYT’s site containing clips of the film, interviews, and trailers.  Here’s one of them.

I read a lot of professional critics saying it wasn’t that good, but I enjoyed it. Not the best movie out there, but definitely a lot of fun. A good popcorn movie.  YouTuber movie reviewer Jeremy Jahns made a good video about his thoughts on it:

Behind the Scenes

And for those of you who like behind the scenes type stuff, Movie Bloopers & Making of uploading 3 parts of various raw clips of the making of the movie.

You can see part 2 here, and part 3 here

Recommended movie for just when you want to have a fun time, and good for kids.  I’m planning on taking my kids to see it.

January 24th, 2015 by