Hey, everyone. Capone in Chicago here.

I think Ben Stiller proved with TROPIC THUNDER that he can get any actor to do pretty much anything in one of his movies. So imagine that pretense combined with some of the greatest comic actors working today--people like Ricky Gervais, Steve Coogan, Robin Williams, Jonah Hill, Owen Wilson, Hank Azaria, Christopher Guest, Jay Baruchel, and various cast members of "The Office," "The State," (including returning screenwriters Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant) and "SNL." Throw in a healthy dash of one of my favorite actresses working today, Amy Adams, who can do no wrong at this point, and what do you get? You get NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: BATTLE OF THE SMITHSONIAN, a film that relies far too much on fairly standard-issue special effects and doesn't give nearly enough time or room to let these great comic minds simply do their stuff. Sure, each cast member gets a laugh or two; some even get a whole scene to really take off (Jonah Hill's one scene as a Smithsonian security guard is very funny, but it seemed clear to me that Hill was improvising 75 percent of his lines). But really what the film amounts to is one missed opportunity after another.

That said, I'm not outright dismissing the film. It's far better, both in concept and as an adventure, than the first film. I love the idea of a museum coming to life, and having grown up in the Washington, DC area, I practically lived at the many museums that make up the Smithsonian. I'll admit, when Stiller enters the Air and Space Museum, my heart skipped a beat. I have been to that museum more than any other, and I wanted nothing more as a kid to watch those exhibits come to life. At the very least, I'll give the filmmakers credit for picking the right venue.

The best thing in the movie is Amy Adams, who plays Amelia Earhart as I believe she would play her if she were making a biopic about the legendary female pilot and not as some exaggerated caricature. Also, Adams' ass looks great in her flying pants (I'm not sure what else to call them; they look kind of like horse-riding pants). I don't mean to be crass, heaven forbid, but director Shawn Levy seems to go out of his way to really highlight just how great those pants hug her hips. She spends half the film with her back to the camera, for Christ's sake! Stop judging me! She's a beautiful, talented woman; leave it at that.

The plot of BATTLE OF THE SMITHSONIAN is just an excuse to get from New York, where Stiller's Larry Daley has become a successful inventor and only visits his museum friends in frequently, to DC, where some of the New York museum's exhibits are shipped, placing a few of Larry's old friends in danger. Azaria does a noble but waaaaaay over-the-top job playing Kahmunrah, an evil Egyptian being who wants to use the same ancient tablet that allows museum exhibits to come to life to open up a portal to a dark world where his evil minions await his calling to take over the world. Azaria gives Kahmunrah Boris Karloff's deep voice, complete with slight lisp, and he looks good in the tunic, but I can't say much more than that. The returning Coogan as the miniature Roman soldier Octavius gets a nice handful of moments to really pop, while his tiny partner in crime--Owen Wilson's cowboy Jedediah--isn't funny even once. I also liked seeing Hader's Gen. George Custer, who wants to take on the role as leader against Kahmunrah's evil forces, but then remembers what happened the last time he led a cavalry charge. Ooops! And if I ever see an Albert Einstein bobblehead with voice of Eugene Levy (featured here in said role), I'm buying it. But if I catch wind of cherub figurines with the voices of the Jonas Brothers (also featured here in said roles), I'll seek them out and smash them with a sledgehammer.

The honest truth is, I laughed more than once during BATTLE OF THE SMITHSONIAN, certainly more than I did watching the first NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM outing. And I'm not just saying that because a young Al Capone is one of the characters in the film. Still, for as many times as I laughed during this film, I sat in a field of awkwardly loud crickets for three times as long. Maybe when Larry and his friends invade the Hermitage Museum in Russia, they'll concentrate more on the funny and less on CGI. There are two or three Rubens paintings I'd love to see come to life, and the potential for Fabergé egg jokes are limitless. Next time, fellas.

-- Capone
capone@aintitcoolmail.com