A Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian

One of the main reasons the Austro-Hungarian Empire fell apart in 1918 was that is was made up of several very different groups of people who just didn't get on. But, before 1914, the Empire had been considered useful as a means of balancing power in Europe between more powerful nations.

If you think that's an incredibly simplified, even reductive, view of history, then you understand what A Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian feels like. It throws in one or two fairly well-known facts about historical figures and events, and paints its characters with broad brushstrokes to avoid getting bogged down in any complicated meaning. But, in its defence, it pleases its target audience with delightfully bad baddies and gloriously good goodies.

Just look at those baddies...a megalomaniac Egyptian Pharaoh (always good for the old 'resurrect a dead army and take over the world' idea – sound familiar?), Ivan the Terrible (who is here far too much of a pushover – literally), Napoleon Bonaparte (played with some French stereotyping in mind – he's also too tall, surely?) and Al Capone (who amusingly appears in monochrome, even in the real world). What a line-up of evil.

Against them is Amelia Earheart (sounding like a good twenties British gel but played by an American – how odd), General Custer (a dubious choice of military leader at the best of times), Octavius Caesar (Augustus, to later historians, and here easily confused with foster-father Julius), the Lincoln Memorial given life (don't get me started on the whole 'giant statue of Lincoln stomping about saving the day and uttering quasi-philosophical statements in a meaningful, deep voice) and Ben Stiller's Night Guard from the previous film in which museum exhibits come to life. Oh, and Owen Wilson's odd little cowboy, who mercifully spends most of the film trapped inside an hourglass. There's even a potential sweet romantic ending, when Stiller meets a real woman who just happens to be the spitting image of Earheart...seriously?

What appeals about this film is the idea of people from different periods of history fighting it out, with various bits of modern technology, or just things they shouldn't really be able to get hold of. Ancient Egyptian troops with tommy guns, say. But it never really works. As an idea, it's been done before – at least once – an episode of Star Trek being the occasion that springs to mind, and it didn't work terribly well in the sixties either (they also brought back Abe Lincoln, and a later episode of Star Trek: Voyager even brought back Amelia Earheart). The biggest problem is the idea that a man like Napoleon or Ivan the Terrible would go along with a long-dead Pharoah's plans for world-domination, and not set up some plan of their own.

Then there's the issue of historical reportage. I think I can just about cope with Lincoln miraculously saving the day...even though his main reason seems to be that he's a whopping huge chunk of marble, and who's going to argue with that? I can also cope with the presentation of Custer as a 'do first, think later' coward of a General with an inflated sense of his own importance. What I'm not so sure about is that Lincoln here seems to be the best possible thing for America, and the best America has ever had, while Custer is persuaded that the Battle of Little Bighorn (his famous Last Stand that cost 208 American lives (including his own) for the sake of Custer's vanity and pride) is all in the past, and that actually, he's a good man to have in a fight. I'd worry about his military shrewdness, and am definitely unsure about Lincoln's negative traits being glossed over.

Though the colour and cheap jokes seem to satisfy the younger target audience, you've got to wonder what A Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian is teaching them.