Night at the Museum II: Stay Out of Washington

A few weeks back Henry Stewart and I reviewed Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian for our weekly feature Blockbluster at The L Magazine's website. It turned out to be much worse than either of us had expected because it not only lacked any decent action sequences, but also squandered its ridiculous cast of comedian superstars (Hank Azaria, Robin Williams, Luke Wilson, Steve Coogan, Christopher Guest, Ricky Gervais, etc.). The stubbornly unfunny movie at least featured some cool effects (a Jeff Koons balloon animal brought to life, for instance), and a terrific performance by Amy Adams as Amelia Earhart – though she was offensively recuperated by a kind of infantilist patriarchal substitution in the final scene. Read all of Henry and I's discussion here.