Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb

The Night at the Museum saga comes to close with this sporadically entertaining yet ultimately disappointing entry, with the narrative following Ben Stiller’s Larry Daley as he’s forced to seek help after the “magic” that brings his inanimate friends to life starts malfunctioning. Though it generally suffers from a pervasive vibe of familiarity, Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb remains relatively watchable for the duration of its brisk running time – with the movie clearly faring better in its action-packed, fast-paced second half. The film’s initial emphasis on Larry’s expected efforts to control his alive-yet-not-alive charges isn’t exactly engrossing, to put it mildly, so it’s not entirely surprising to note that the movie improves substantially once Larry and co. arrive at the British Museum to track down a fix for the aforementioned “magic” – with this portion of the proceedings containing a number of admittedly entertaining set pieces (including a trip through a typically mind-bending M.C. Escher painting). The inclusion of an absurd yet thoroughly captivating celebrity cameo, which essentially stands as a high point within the entire series, perpetuates Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb‘s better-than-expected third-act atmosphere, although, unfortunately, director Shawn Levy ensures that the film concludes with a whimper by offering up an excessively sappy final stretch that just goes on and on – with this underwhelming climax confirming the movie’s place as an almost passable concluding entry in a seriously forgettable trilogy.

** out of ****