I was fortunate enough to see Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian. Now I have to say I was a fan of the first one. It was fun with an interesting concept. Not exactly Citizen Kane, but to be fair Citizen Kane doesn't appeal to the same audience that Night at the Museum does. That being said the sequel was entertaining up to a point and then my brain short circuited. I'll get to that in a second. Summary first.
Ben Stiller plays the same character from the first film, but far more successful. He's an entrepreneur and has invented a glow in the dark flashlight that seems pretty cool until you remember that most cell phones are brighter than the surface of the sun (that kids is called exaggeration), which renders his invention useless but despite his crappy product people are buying and he is successful. This movie has jokes. Anyway on a break from his busy schedule he goes to visit the museum to find that the exhibits were being replaced with digital exhibits and that the old exhibits were being shipped to the Smithsonian. Which means that all those exhibits at the Smithsonian will be coming to life. Yep sequels have to be bigger and better. Anyway Hank Azaria and a squad of evil guys decide to be mean so Ben Stiller decides to have a Battle at the Smithsonian. It seemed inevitable this would happen.
What I liked: I know, I kept you in suspense a few paragraphs back, but patience young Jedi, first things first. I liked the comedic moments between fellow museum guards Ben stiller and Jonah Hill. They had a nice chemistry of comedy, it was a nice little cameo and a chance for what it seems like improvisation. Good stuff. Also Hank Azaria does a great bit belittling one if the most feared creations of the 20th century: Darth Vader, and it was hilarious. Really all said and done those were the two genuinely funny moments in this comedy and would be great as standalone pieces on YouTube.
What I didn't like: okay like I said earlier there was one piece in the movie that bugged me to no end.. When Ben Stiller goes to tell the little bobblehead Einsteins that he needs help with a riddle they give him a lame hieroglyphics joke. That didn't bother me, what did was that they said oh the answer is pi then everyone of them decided to arbitrarily stop pi at the same place. This gets pretty intense here for me as pi doesn’t end. It’s an irrational number, and in ignoring that the writers declared war on knowledge. pi is usually rounded off at 3.14 and I wouldn't have minded so Much if that was the case, however they stopped at 6 digits. Which derides pi and people who obsess about memorizing pi to the thousandth digit. It goes deeper, they missed out on a joke there too, what if the little Einstiens just kept going? Like for the length of the movie hounding an unwilling Ben Stiller about all the decimal places of pi there are. Comedic potential wasted. *sigh* it really is just lazy writing at this point and that little math error turned my brain on, leaving me not enjoying the movie properly. Why does General Custer remember what happened to him after his last stand? How can Ben Stiller leaving his cell phone in a photograph start the cell phone company Motorola? Also there was no one actual Motorola as the movie would leave you to believe. I looked it up since I was sure the writers were just damned lazy and sure enough Motorola was started by some guy named Galvin *grumbles under breath*.
Look the point is a nice little forgetful movie took a turn straight into stupid town. It may not have been the pi thing for you it may have been some other part that didn't make sense, like Abraham Lincoln making a mistake and then claiming he hadn’t cause he never lies, but it was really just poorly written and I think that no amount of acting can save such a mess.
Watch this if you liked the Transformers sequel. They both made no sense and I'm sure that Michael bay has included math errors in his many masterpieces. If you would like to be entertained and have fun math tidbits too watch “Futurama,” not a movie but still funny. Oh and if you want to see a bizarre tale of obsession with math that puts my small gripe with this movie to shame catch Pi. Darren Aronofsky just released Black Swan recently and his first movie Pi has been a cult classic. Plus it correctly states that pi is an irrational number.
