Arts & Listings

AFTER CLOSING HOURS

14 May 2009

NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM: BATTLE OF THE SMITHSONIAN:
Releases
Thursday May 21st 2009

Ben Stiller, Robin Williams and Dick Van Dyke return for the sequel to the Night At the Museum, with Stiller returning as Larry Daley, the unfortunate night watchman who continues to encounter the museum exhibits as they come alive after closing hours.

It will be the first major Hollywood feature to be filmed at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. - which houses the world's largest museum complex with more than 136 million items in its collections including the plane Amelia Earhart flew on he rnon-stop solo flight across the Atlantic, and the still from M*A*S*H.

Due to the nature of the complex story, more historical figures are expected to be involved, with Amelia Earhart being portrayed by Amy Adams. A new villainous pharaoh, Kahmunrah, will be played by Hank Azaria and the return of Owen Wilson, Ricky Gervais, and Steve Coogan confirms there will be some existing characters alongside the new ones. Christopher Guest plays Russian tyrant Ivan the Terrible and Alain Chabat appears as Napoleon.

Owen Wilson is back as cowboy Jedediah, and Robin Williams again rides into history as Teddy Roosevelt.  Also back will be a batch of familiar creatures including Rexy and Dexter.
Shawn Levy knows he set the bar high with the first film, but he's positive fans of Night at the Museum won't be let down by the sequel.

He said: "The script is better, the cast is bigger, the action's bigger, so we're feeling pretty good.  I don't think anyone's going to be disappointed."

Levy hasn't reinventing the wheel for the second movie. Instead, he and Night at the Museum screenwriters Ben Garant and Thomas Lennon have expanded on what made the first film such a success.

"We start by going to the Smithsonian, which is the biggest museum in the world," said Levy on how this film builds on the original. "And it involves like aircrafts and various historical figures. It has 18 museums and I'll just say that in this movie, they leave the museum. So it's not just inside; they bust out into the world."

Levy says he knew while he was filming Night at the Museum that they were onto something, but no one anticipated the film would be embraced the way it was by audiences worldwide. "We had a feeling it was going to do something, but it was far more than expected. million. It certainly changed my career - and it's been really fun."

And the fun continues with this heart warming and entertaining film, based on good old fashioned values and some excellent casting.

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