'Night at the Museum 3' loses magic, reveals no secrets
Night at the Museum 3: The Secret of the Tomb is a sad rehash of the first two movies in the series. There are no secrets here, only jokes that have been told twice over and a cast that looks like they phoned in their performances – a paycheck is a paycheck after all.
That doesn’t mean that there are no funny parts or touching moments. It just means that the franchise looks like it has run out of jokes and storylines to tell. What could one do with the magic power of a tablet to bring the museum to life, especially in the days of the iPad? And that may be the saddest part of all, any semi-sentient individual could come up with a movie that would make sense, have a different plotline and come with new jokes based on the wonderful idea of Night at the Museum. Dan Stevens’ Lancelot is hilarious as the not-to-self-aware, ever-gallant Sir Lancelot. He is really the best actor for much of the film, and he gives Steve Coogan some of his better lines. The cameos are great and include Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney, Alice Eve and Hugh Jackman. For Robin Williams’ fans, the last scenes are absolutely golden – not funny but beautiful with just the right tone for the film and our loss. Unfortunately, the story lines of father and son and its ridiculously overplayed parallels are forced and left even Ben Kingsley with nothing to do. It was as if the casting agents and producers were more interested in dropping names than they were in dropping jokes. In fact, there are far too many monkey urinating jokes to make this film enjoyable. Don’t let Night at the Museum 3 kill the family budget unless you are missing Williams as much as the rest of us. |
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